"Doesn't it look nice?" he asked. Of course it did. It always looks nicer after it's cut than it did before, when it looked all scruffy and uneven, like the OC himself with a seven day beard. But he craves the praise, so.....Yes dear, it's lovely. You're so good.....Small price to pay for not having to cut it myself! Though I might try, some day, after I've done a particularly stellar job of scrubbing the toilets, to see if anyone would be interested in coming to gaze into their gleaming depths and be rendered speechless........Some day.
Enough speculation, though. Back to my story! The grass was cut and it had started to rain. Just the thing to settle the dust.
But it wasn't just raining. It was bucketing down, and as we watched, the trees started to thrash wildly.
"Where on earth did that come from?"
Fifty percent chance of rain, they'd said. Ho hum. A normal Florida summer afternoon. But Whoa! This had the look of a mini hurricane. Right there, in the recently calm and sunny back garden.
And as I heard the ominous "Craaaack!" and instant splitting of wood, I knew why the trees were writhing so wildly...they were trying to escape! But the small matter of roots prevented them.... We stood rooted, ourselves, by the sliding glass door, not daring to breathe, as a huge pine tree crashed to the ground. It missed the pool cage by a couple of feet. That would have been a disaster. And the OC airport-bound in half an hour!
And then it stopped. As fast as it started; and by the time we got to Tampa, the sun was shining and the sky was looking innocently blue....
"What? Me? Have a tantrum? No way!"
Monday morning I went outside for a gander. Two stumps, sticking up into the blue.
They'd broken off up high, so let's be thankful for small mercies. Had the trunks broken lower down, there might have been lots more damage. Both trees were on our neighbour's property, but fell onto ours. I don't even know if Bird-Legs-Bob is aware of what happened, or if he's even home. I do think we'll need to put our heads together and take down a few more....Like these bad boys....
We still have miles to go before hurricane season is over. The next one might fall in a much more inconvenient place!
The Bean went out, chain saw in hand, to clear up this mess....
Chain saws make me nervous, especially in the hands of one of my children. It's not that I don't think he's competent, he is. But I have an over active imagination, which is why my heart stopped when he came back in, fifteen minutes later, barely able to drag himself through the door. I was sure he'd cut off a limb, and I don't mean from a tree.... He hadn't, but had twisted something in his back and was in pain. So there he was, long spawgs stretched out on the carpet, groaning. Definitely a tripping hazard. Ice was applied, Florence Nightingale summoned, and the chain saw retired for the day.
When you're on a losing streak it's best to quit early!
7 comments:
Oh, I know that feeling when a child and a chainsaw meet! It's even worse when said child is 70 feet up a tree, dangling from ropes, with chainsaw in hand. I was glad when the Lovely Son gave up being a tree surgeon..... He had been forbidden, when training, to tell me anything about the safety videos they'd had to watch!
Hope your boy's back recovers quickly.
I love the point about the lavatory cleaning! There were one or two occasions when (after major tantrums on my part) my husband did some minor domestic chores, and the result was always the proclamation: "I've hoovered the sitting room/wiped down the work surfaces/washed up FOR YOU!"
Does any woman ever proclaim, "I've cleaned the sink FOR YOU"?
Such an exciting life you live! I suspect you enjoyed playing Florence Nightingale, yes?
Oh, my, I do hope Bean didn't herniate a disk, the poor lad. And I am no stranger to Florida thunderstorms, which are amazing in their ferocity and equally amazing in how quickly they pass over. Good luck with the rest of hurricane season, just starting. And please do be careful.
I wish someone would compliment me on how clean my toilets are, too, just once in my life. But no. Such things are taken for granted. Frankly, I'd rather mow lawns and still miss my tractor, which was left with our house in TN when we moved to California.
Since I do it all, indoor household chores and outdoor, I'd take a compliment on any of my work!
You crack me up. Men's chores have always been much more important than women's chores, so don't hold your breath for praise over the toilets. In fact, why is it that when the man cleans the toilets (it could happen)he must be praised vociferously, but when we do it, it's just expected? And yet, when I mow the lawn, there's no fuss???
Your observations about certain people needing praise for mundane chores made me smile. Must be a international condition. Glad nothing broken by falling trees and hope your son has recovered.
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