"It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time..."

The title of this blog explains so much in Life, doesn't it?

- Why I brought home two 'kind-of-cool' huge, gaudy, green-glass, hanging lights.

- Why I thought tires for strawberry planters would work.

- Why the chiro sent me to have my ankle x-rayed.

- Why I bought a chainsaw.

- Why I brought home empty 50-gallon barrels.

That's just a few recent 'good ideas' lately. In no particular order, I'll try to explain. The lights are about 18 inches tall, skinny-egg shape (I suppose there's a geometrically correct term for this, but danged if I know it or am that curious) --- or in my view, "Baghdad Battery" shape. :)

Now what can one do with these? Aside from simply turning them into planters, I mean, since some durned fool in throes of Spring Fever keeps bringing home seed packets when their yard is both shady and overrun by dogs. "Baghdad Battery" does come to mind, but are we sure I should try combining Tesla coils with ancient battery explorations?

They are pretty cool though, and maybe an option for growing upside-down tomatoes (I'm not going to buy a $20 'kit' to do this!) especially since I also fetched home about 30 plastic dog food sacks that would work just as well. I could always do the battery next fall then, right? And I doubt anyone has fancier 'upside-down containers' than these!

Or if and when I get that fish pond built, which I think my little fish would like as long as predatory creatures aren't about, the globes could make some great underwater lights or something.

That pretty much answers Sera's question of why I'd bring these home.

There's a longer story to why an ER doc is now on my 'hit list' - and it starts with dead-standing birch trees, sawzal, and Son Dennis temporarily available. There were two such trees golf course-side of the fence, and I could see some durn fool golfer getting conked and trying to sue; therefore, said trees should be removed. A more difficult, larger one was standing dead inside the fence, and it also needed to be dropped. And... one in the center of the yard, which I've been aware of with the Kid playing around it.

The smaller ones were slightly larger than a foot in diameter and not too problematic, especially since Dennis was using the sawzal and not I. The one inside the fence was a bit more tricky, in that I like the fence it leaned over. I was 'the brains of this operation,' if that explains anything. Figured if we cut it about 3 1/2 feet up, most of it should miss the fence. Did I mention this one was larger? We hacked and chopped and pried and sawed, a bit like the Three Stooges with one member missing.

Got it cut clean through, but - it hooked up in other trees, and the base of the cut was precariously perched on the stump by an inch. WELL, can't leave it like that! Did we all know trees are heavy? Neither of us wanted to stand directly next to it prying away, which is some small sign of intelligence. An Inch can be a tricky business in its own right, especially when it's chest-high with a tree on it. No long bars around here, so that may be another thing I should scavenge someday somewhere. We hacked and we whacked and we dashed off and back several times, then Dennis managed to free it with a broken piece of gate-pipe.

Which brought it down, a bit on the fence, but not too bad.

Three down, one to go. The Big One had a pretty good shot at landing on the house. (By this time, I was no longer worried about the fence, in that it is replaceable. I hear Homeowners Insurance doesn't cover stupidity.) OF COURSE I don't have any proper chain or cable! But I did have a box of garage-door parts that is supposed to be hauled out of here, and luckily - I hadn't got that far in dump-runs. In this mess of stuff were garage-door cables, which seem to be pretty tough, at least in my limited view. They were only about 10 feet long and we needed about 40 feet, so creative tying and bolting occurred.

After using left-over scrap wire to feed a line around a branch 20 feet up and hauling the cable up and cinching it, I circled an oak on the other side of the house. Enough cable for one loop around, then makeshift knot. Not exactly safe and totally not recommended!!! I want to state that clearly now, so no one attempts to repeat this. Since this was still a sawzal project, it took a bit; in hindsight, we realized we should have notched the fall-side. I kept tension on the cable by the oak, since I figured a good jolt on it may just snap it and send it zooming wildly through the air. When my arm began aching from holding it in this position, I got my vise-grips out to clamp the ends, then twisted the pry-bar in the cable for tension as the tree slowly loosened. OF COURSE this tree hung up in other trees, etc., and the pry-bar might have come in handy if it wasn't already tangled in the cable on the oak.

But it didn't fall towards the house.

It kind of took down another birch on its path, and they hung up together on a third birch, neatly woven together 20 feet up in the air. Good-sized branches criss-crossed each other top and bottom, which really had them tangled! Did I mention trees are heavy?

At that moment, it seemed like a good idea to remove the other tree it'd fallen on, which did drop from its stump and sunk about 3 inches in the soft ground. Cut, but still tangled and air-borne. Did you know you could use a 2x4 to wiggle things like trees a bit? If you use a decaying 2x4, it'll break on you (handy observation). So we were slowly working these down and trying to free them, which is when I did what seemed like a good idea at the time - I pried the base of the second tree that was bearing the weight of the first tree. Technically, it worked, in that it all moved and dropped a fair bit. Just it rolled over my foot and I went down sideways to keep from creating unusual angles in my shin. It came to rest on my ankle, pinning me down in a rather awkward position, but the ground is still some soft (yay). Dennis was able to pry it up with the 2x4 enough so I could free myself.

I figured best thing to do was get on with the work, in that ankles and bones will be less apt to holler if they think you think they're okay. I baked up a Pumpkin Roll for the chiro's office, in that the staff has been asking since last fall if I was going to bring in one, and when I dropped it off, figured the chiro could test the ankle. No major break or sprain, but a bit of inner chaos that I figured I should be aware of before I ruthlessly do something else stupid to it.

But... one of those days, Val beat me to the chiro's. She fainted in a class and whacked her head a good one, and finally... finally my daughter is thinking 'chiro first, then doctor' when it comes to whacks and bones. The Child seems fine, but was a bit rattled from the experience and worried folks a few days.

This was also the day I chose to drop my car off at the mechanic's; I'd managed to get the timing belt /water pump and labor for around $250, and it was time to take care of this. The chiro did a new technique on my ankle, where he used a tuning fork to test my reaction. It felt like an electric shock, which can indicate a fracture (the other ankle felt like a humming vibration) so he asked me to have it x-rayed. So... after dropping off my car and with a head-banged kid, Sera took me to the ER. Since they didn't have anyone else in - waiting for a few hours in the ER is not my forte - I had it x-rayed.

NOW --- that Mr. Doctor was obnoxious! "If you want to throw your money away on chiro's..." Hello, does he know how much the ER's gonna cost? I now own a $400 ace bandage. Really snotty attitude, and when I said I was in a bit of a hurry since I had folks waiting -- he said he'd send back the papers to sign, then left me sitting there. I am not a patient person beyond a reasonable limit, especially when the entire ER was empty, aside from me and staff. So I wandered out and asked where might these papers be? ... Right on the desk in a clipboard, he hadn't sent them back. (Jerk.) EeeeYup. He's gonna hear about it, in a nice way, of course. But he's in my sights as a narrow-minded jackass undermining a decent profession in a place where he interacts with Joe Q. Public, and Joe should know the fallacy of this doctor's Esteemed Opinion.

I don't think he actually bothered to scan the x-rays, since I'm able to walk and nothing was obviously majorly damaged (say, a right angle where it shouldn't be or massive swelling or blood gushing). I researched the use of tuning forks for detecting fractures, and gosh --sports docs, military - esp. in the field, and paramedics use this technique as a preliminary diagnostic tool! That the chiro wanted it verified before doing any adjustments is reasonable then.

Anyway... The day after we cut down these trees and before I saw the chiro and dropped off my car... I broke down and bought a 'cute little chainsaw'. Told the Universe if Menard's had one for under $50, I'd invest, and I prefer electric. It has a 14" blade which is ample for my few needs. Dennis used it some, then took a break from Mom and Physical Labor to hang out with his friend a few days while he's visiting from St. Cloud (no car, works regular job). The little chainsaw was sufficient for me to cut up the trees on both sides of the fence and get the golf cleaned up -- keeping Peace with Madden's, since they are a high-ranking course in the country. (Prefer they don't get irate with me.)

The worst thing is a 'new young friend I met' who was exceptionally talented, intelligent, and spiritual opted to end his life and get to the Other Side last week. I wish he'd have called me, because he had so much energy and experiences to share, but --he couldn't wait to build 'Jacob's ladder' and was in agony to get free of this limited dimension to a fuller world. Okay, I understand him, but it still left a void where he used to be for a lot of people. Since I see few things as impossible, I don't mind if he breaks these barriers and visits occasionally. For all his abilities, he was a Kid and I'm a Mom, and when a Kid is in distress... Daresay he's plenty busy and occupied now on the other side of life, just our loss here. Which may be our inability 'to hear' even when they talk.

I took a drive to fetch on home the 50-gallon barrels, with intent to incorporate them into rain barrels here, which gave me time to ponder Caleb's departure. I proved that I can fit 3 of these barrels in my little hatchback, which is a tribute to this 'mechanical friend' of mine. A previous barrel was drilled and cut to make a spinning compost container. And then I heard a pretty cool "what if..." What if a person cut both ends off a lot of barrels and made a tunnel? How awesome would that be?!

I need more barrels.

So -- I'm keeping well-busy with the turning of the seasons (yee-ha, the first day I heard frogs I was slightly delirious - we'd survived another winter!) and my own Spirit in Nature and exceptional friends on all levels - human, spirit, animal, mechanical, plant.

I encourage anyone to read and share the recent blog from Richard. At some point, we will have to bring about the change that is necessary if we are to progress into a positive future.
http://economictree.blogspot.com/2009/04/column-114-reclaiming-americas-economic.html

I won't quite go to the extent of comparing the current monetary system to a bad marriage, but if you've tried everything to fix it and you're still being battered, stepped-on, and enslaved... Then a person should consider other options and not keep staying in the same mess. Agreed?

That is so logical, it about hurts in the simplicity!

Peace and love to all - anyone want to tinker with "Tesla and the Baghdad Battery"? Anyone interested in vibrations and sound to 'fall the walls of Jericho' or 'scream down a tree'? (On the last, Matt told me about an African way where the shaman 'screams' at a tree in a ceremony 30 times in 30 days, and the tree falls over -- not MY story, Matt's!) Contemplating, "In the Beginning was the Word" - it could possibly be more correctly stated as "In the beginning was the Sound" i.e. Vibration, hum, Tesla-stuff. Words are Sound first, created by Vibration, and then we take human credit for it... :)

And I'm pretty sure if I asked Caleb what he'd been thinking, he'd say, "It seemed like a good idea at the time." -- yeah, but I want a word with him, if he's not out of range (I'll give him a little what-for too, and a huge hug of understanding.)