The Event
It was a hot muggy afternoon at the Kowalski homestead. Ann Marie was riding around on her Snapper rear engine riding lawn mower. Her second cutting of the week. She loves her fertilizer and water.
Having recently completed her crop circle work, i.e. a surrounding area free of vegetation and heavily mulched to retain moisture around the plants, she was mowing close in to the trees and shrubs.
The front tire of the mower slide into the crop circle, turning the mower sharply right into the old apple tree yard deco element. Ann's feet bounced off the pedals, away from the brake and clutch. The steering wheel was snatched from her hands and away from the throttle. The mower handle started sliding up one of the tree trunks. This climbing action was raising the front end off of the ground, threatening to tip the mower over backwards.
As the mower had recently been overhauled with a new clutch and drive mechanism, it didn't even slow down as it slammed into the base of the apple tree. The tree split vertically with half of the tree wrapping around the standing portion of the trunk.
The upper limbs of the tree had once been stabilized with steel cables to provide platforms for bird feeders, nest boxes and squirrel feeders and prevent their snapping from snow loads.
As the snapped tree segment started to fall across the mower, the cables slowed their descent with the assistance of the equally strong girls. When Ann finally got the mower stopped, she was pinned between half of the tree and the mower seat.
With the partial support of the cables and her inordinate strength, Ann was able to lift the tree enough to slide out from under its crushing grip. Fortunately, the end result was some gnarfs, a few small lacerations, some dandy ecchymoses, pains, strains, aches and owwie-owwies.
The Aftermath
In the light of dawn, it was decided that the apple tree yard deco art was beyond repair. It was too unstable to continue providing the various ancillary support roles and would pose an on-going threat to the well-being of future yard visitors.
I removed all the steel cabling, clevises, turnbuckles, bolts, hooks and other hardware to prevent damage to saw blades, splitting mauls or other tools that would be used to further break down the tree.
It was necessary to break the tree up into manageable size pieces. With the two weak minded strong backs working on the job, it became evident that 100 pound pieces would be about right. The parts had to be carted uphill and around the house, loaded into the truck, transported to the dump, off-loaded from the truck and placed in a dumpster with 8-foot high sides.
After cutting, splitting, carting and loading over a ton of wood, digging up the roots, making three trips to the dump, lifting the pieces over the side of the dumpster, the project was sorta done.
Ann starts with the "Do you want to save the hostas?" There's another story around here about my vast knowledge of floral varieties. There being no purple flowers showing, I never had a clue that we were digging around a hosta bed.
A nice project to replace both cardio and strength training for the day. Unfortunately, Ann had early morning training before being able to help me with the demolition.
