Aug. 20, 2003 ~ Have I mentioned
that I'm just a tad goofy about having people, workers, at my house? You'd be surprised at the things I can come up with to worry about. Things that would probably never even occur to most people. It basically stems from my belief that no matter how bad things are now, they can always get worse. So if something is just a little bit broken, with hardly any effort, it can totally cease to function.
The electric co-op sent some guys out last week to cut down a couple of dead or dying trees (which were close to the power lines). One crew cuts down; another crew cleans up. Except that... folks tell us the cleanup guys don't always show up. Some people claim to have been waiting for months for them to arrive. I found that hard to believe. The trees were cut down last Tuesday, and since that day, Husband has bemoaned the fact that he will probably have to do all the cleanup himself. And these were BIG trees. One tree is a very hard type of wood, and he was sure it would tear up our chainsaw. So I've been feeling this mild sense of dread... as in, "They are NEVER going to show up. Ack!"
Yesterday at 4:00, two big trucks pulled up in the yard. Now my feeling of dread changed to "They're here! Ack, ack, ack!" One truck pulled a chipper; the other truck had a "grabber," a kind of big pincer-like device that loggers use to pick up the cut trees. Just two guys. I spoke to them, explaining that we didn't want any firewood or wood chips (they always offer to do this for the customers -- makes the customers happy, and there is less wood for them to dispose of). The guy said he was sorry, but he didn't think he'd get both trees cleaned up today. He thought he could get the tree out of the front yard, though. I smiled and thanked him.
They were going to get that tree out of there in an hour? Not likely. But they started up their chainsaws and started cutting the limbs into somewhat smaller pieces, and feeding them into the chipper. Next they picked up the big pieces of the trunk and put them in the big truck's bed. The whole time this was happening I was sort of ambling around the house, too stressed out to actually do anything useful. I don't really know what I was worried about, but I was sure that SOMETHING could go wrong.
You know what? It didn't. Nothing went wrong. They did an amazing job. Those two guys got that whole big tree out of there, every last bit, in about an hour and fifteen minutes. They even raked up the twigs and leaves and got rid of them, too! They couldn't say when they'd be back to clean up the other tree, but it could be as soon as tomorrow. Or not. But the mess is out of the yard, which only leaves the mess in the pasture, next to the fence. The guys did accidentally break one of the fence wires when they cut that tree down, which is no big deal, but we don't want to fix it till they get the tree out of there. It would most likely just get broken again.
Many years ago, when the boys were small, I looked forward to the first day of school with eager anticipation. I loved them madly, of course, but also craved time alone. When they were little, I sometimes wrote notes and slipped them into their lunch boxes, or I drew pictures of horses on their lunch sacks. Last night I drew a silly picture of a horse on a lunch sack, and had a little cartoon bubble coming from the horse's mouth. "Have a great first day of school!" it said. College Boy saw it last night, and you should have seen the look on his face. "It's a JOKE, Son!" I said. Oh, he looked so relieved! For a second there, I think he was afraid I really expected him to use that sack! He drove off to school early this morning, shortly before I woke up. How times have changed. No more photos of cute kids, lunch boxes in hand, big smiles on their faces, as they head out the door for the first day of kindergarten. Instead, grown-up young men are making their way in the world.
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