Second Half of the NEW YEAR.

Good Morning,

YAY, it is Saturday.

We even slept in quite a lot with the exception of getting up at 4:30 so that Alvin could have breakfast and do his business.

Then up again at 7:30 as Alvin wanted to go outside, again.

Then finally at 8:59 (which sounds better than 9:00).

Okay procrastination for sure but it is Saturday.

After a dilly of a work day.

Okay I shall explain.

All week long it has been a struggle with work as documents/screens took forever to save.

Now I am not very technical so I will just say that every part of my job seem to take forever to do.

Come Friday morning and worse.

So I enlisted the aid of one of our systems guys ….. he worked remotely on my computer.

Doing updates and checking things.

He even reset my Wifi ….. which scared me but alas I did have the password.

Finally later in the morning I was able to actually get some work done.

But a large dent of my morning was lost and I was not a very happy camper to say the least.

So much of my job has deadlines and I lost a lot of time this week.

Even throughout the day there were what we called the “blue bars of death.”

They always pop up at 2:18 in the afternoon everyday.

But I had them a couple of times but gratefully only for a couple of extra seconds.

I ended up working after 4:00 p.m. as I was trying to get some things done.

After work, I gave Alvin his supper and decided to hit my long weekend TO DO LIST right away.

The sun was shining and we had gone for a walk at lunch time so I figured we could do without the second walk.

Perhaps sometimes two walks is one too many for Alvin, I am not sure.

Likely a good question for his Vet, next visit.

So this is what I decided to do.

TRIM THE TREE.

I went to the garage to grab my trusty tree trimmer tool with Al in hot pursuit.

He never leaves my side.

First male in history.

The tree trimmer is a long pole with very sharp cutting blades on the end.

You place the branch in between the blades and pull on the long rope.

Voile, the branch comes falling down.

Now it does not cut huge branches and I would not want it to as I would likely get bonked on the head.

But it does trim small to medium branches and yes, you still must watch carefully not to get bonked on the head.

As the pile of branches was getting growing – my neighbour Eric came outside and I asked if I could borrow his smaller trimmer.

He said yes and grabbed it for me.

You see, after you have all of the branches laying in a pile on the ground …. you have to cut them into pieces and put them into bags for garbage pickup.

I had quite the pile.

There were a couple of extra high branches that I was not able to reach.

I was in no way about to stretch the pole to reach them and lose control of the pole and have it and the branch come tumbling down upon me or a passerby.

Also, I found it helpful to each time a branch came down …. to place the branch onto a pile away from the tree.

Once done I then cut each branch into smaller pieces to start packing into garbage bags.

I was likely about halfway down and my back was killing me.

Lots of bending and stretching.

Finding muscles that I do not often use but a reminder that I need to stretch more.

Anyway, I went into the house and made a quick supper.

I had planned to make one of the GOOD FOOD suppers but that would take time and have more cleanup so decided to just have eggs.

So had some eggs with cheese and salsa and some fresh veg.

Much to Alvin’s disappointment, I was back out to finish the cleanup.

Oh, also my darling gorgeous tree has these little dark blue berries.

Guess what happens when the the branches fall onto the ground …. some of them found their way onto my sandals.

Yes, I was wearing my open toe / foot sandals, I cannot remember if they are CROCS or the other one.

Before I went into the house – I checked my feet and was “happily surprised” to see that the soles of my feet had HUGE berry stains.

The kind that do not come off easily and my hands …. yes, my hands, too.

I moved four bags of branches to the back gate.

Once I was finished I planned to go inside the house and pick up Alvin on the way out to the backyard.

Open the gate and then put the six bags of branches in the garage for garbage pick up on Tuesday.

I placed some larger branches end up in a bag.

Unable to cut them into smaller pieces (or so I thought).

Just as I was about to take that bag to the back gate – a gal that I knew came along with her dog named Bear.

She walked over and we had the best visit.

Alvin was not happy and barked for a couple of minutes but soon stopped.

My kids used to live next door to her and she remains in that house in our neighbourhood.

Usually when I see her out walking with Bear …. I am in the house and not able to get out to say hi.

This time was perfect.

We had a great visit.

Jody said that she had a good ladder that was perfect to get at those higher up branches.

It was substantial and solid enough to do the job.

I am not sure how long we stood there visiting but as patient as Bear was at one point me walked over to his Mom, jumped up and gave her a kiss.

He is a mix breed ….. perhaps Lab and German Shepherd, not a little boy for sure.

Jody said that was a sign that he was wanting to keep walking.

 

By the time everything was all done and I was back into the house it was after 7:30.

I was so happy that I had checked the “tree trimming” from my list.

Oh and I decided to cut back the plants in my front flower bed as I had the tools.

Ready for winter.

Check that off the list.

I do want to till the soil.

 

Well now it is getting super late and I have to have a shower.

Feeling kind of scrungy … is that a word?

Spell check does not think so.

But I am going to leave it.

I think you will understand its’ meaning.

 

Time to get this day going.

I need coffee.

Living with kindness and respect.

I/We shall remain,

As Always, Carol & Alvin