Three Rights Make a Left

THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE

It is always amazing to me, the things that Lori can talk me into doing. She loves home improvement projects and is absolutely fearless about taking one on. If she doesn’t know how to do it, she will watch videos on YouTube until she feels confident to take it on, whether it is putting down laminate flooring, building a tile shower, or putting up engineered siding on a house. If she gets in her mind to do something she will do it. By the way, she is a master painter.

I, on the other hand, know my limitations. I was in the construction business for a number of years when I was younger, I oversaw the building of roads and bridges when I was a County Commissioner, and my degree from East Texas State is in “Occupational Resources and Applied Technology.” In more common terms, I am a degreed “Shop Teacher”. So, I have an ample measure of healthy skepticism of whether I want to take a project on before I get into it. Lori, on the other hand, has no inhibition about taking a project on. Once she has built the confidence to do it, she is ready to go and her powers of persuasion to involve me in her schemes are uncanny.

Case in point: a few weeks ago, Lori said that the brush growing along our fence rows was bothering her and she wanted us to go and clear it out. She said the part that particularly concerned her was along the county road in the back of our house. Now the main entrance to our house is from a Farm to Market Road, and there are no fences between us and FM 513 S. No, the part that bothered her was the property line that is about two football fields in distance behind our house along County Road 3214. So, a couple of weeks ago we headed back there with a pole chainsaw.

We started on a stretch of fence that is covered at least 5 or 6 feet on either side by thorny briars, poison ivy and wild roses. Now before you get all squishy about cutting down wild roses, I have to tell you that these aren’t the garden variety of rose bushes. They grow about 6 feet tall and wide; their flowers are only about ¾ of an inch across and only bloom for about a week and a half, and the thorns are wicked. In short, they simply have to go, along with the thick, thorny briar vines and poison ivy.

We started the attack with the pole chainsaws. We have both the gas and battery powered variety. The problem was that the brambles make the chain jump off about every two minutes, so I have to stop and put the chain back on. Our second wave of attack still proved to be slow but ultimately turned out to be more successful. We loaded our generator up in the bucket of the tractor along with a cheap electric hedge trimmer and a couple of rakes. We learned that using the rakes to pull the brambles away from the fence and cut alongside the fence, then cut it off at the ground was the best technique. Then we would use the hedge trimmer and cut between the strands of barbed wire, then cut the brush on the opposite side off at the ground and chop off big chunks. From long experience, we have learned to wear thick clothing and gloves when clearing fence rows. So far, we haven’t contracted poison ivy and the bleeding has been minimal, but the project is still young because we got interrupted by cold and icy weather. When it warms up again, we will be back at it. Cutting thorny, noxious brush you can barely see from our house. The things we do for love.