It all started with a text from my pet sitter – well, the wheels were put into motion before I guess – as I was heading home from my business trip of the week letting me know that “one of the big branches split and fell” on my plum tree. She promised to send pictures a little later. This did not seem like a huge surprise to me. The tree was a little overgrown, I had meant to trim it back before the season started but never got around to it, and Mr. Zeus loves to tug unripe plums off of the tree himself to play with.
When she finally sent pictures I was finally in for the surprise. This was not just one branch that split and fell. It was quite a few. Turns out, it was probably half the tree. Ugh.
Thankfully my calendar is pretty clear this weekend so this morning I decided not to put it off and to get this tree cleaned up and taken care of. I finally got a good look at it yesterday though and realized that this would require a chain saw. Do I own a chain saw? No. Have I ever even used a chain saw before? No. Time to go shopping! So at 10:00am, I loaded Zeus into the jeep and off we went to Home Depot. The branches weren’t that thick, it is just a plum tree after all, so I looked on the Home Depot site and found the smallest chain saw they had, verifying that it was in stock, so I knew what I was going for when we got there and I wouldn’t have to waste time. I figured we could be in and out of the store in 10 minutes max. WRONG. I found the chain saws and, of course, the spot on the shelf for the one I wanted was empty. I figured they had to be overhead since the site told me they had 7 in stock. I searched for someone to help me and after wandering up and down aisles looking for someone who worked there (and also stopping for the occasional comments from folks about my giant dog) I finally went to the customer service desk and had them page someone. I went back to the aisle and waited. And waited After about ten minutes there was still nobody there so I wandered again until I finally found an employee to accost for assistance.
Mr. Home Depot went to grab his lift to look on top for the chain saw. While he was looking, my eyes wandered around the aisle and I spotted another cool chain saw gadget, a short 8” saw on a 9’ telescoping pole! YES! This would come in handy! Not just with this tree but I have a variety of citrus trees I struggle to trim back every year, this seemed like the perfect answer and wasn’t too pricey so I loaded it into the cart. After another good chunk of time waiting, Mr. Home Depot finally went and checked receiving and then came back defeated that the 7 chain saws were nowhere to be found. He came back just in the knick of time as I was about to add a power washer to my cart too… Since they couldn’t be found, he offered to discount the next model up to only $5 more than the little one I wanted. While I really wanted something that felt smaller and more manageable, this deal was too good to pass up. Zeus and I checked out and headed back home to dive into our project.
At about 11am, we got back home and went straight to work. I figured that the sunny weather was a perfect opportunity to try to even out my hiker/golfer tan so I changed into a stringy bikini top and the tiniest running shorts I have, put sun screen on my already tan arms, legs, and neck, and got down to work. Trying to decide where to start was a bit overwhelming but I just picked a branch and went for it. This tree is bearing a ridiculous amount of fruit. I did not want all these plums to go to waste and plums do continue to ripen once picked so I decided that step one on each branch was to pick off all the fruit. I decided to separate the pieces that were starting to ripen from the ones that were almost completely green still. Armed with my arsenal of clippers, hedge clippers, telescoping clipper, chain saw, and telescoping chain saw, I started picking and clipping.
Lizzy and Zeus were both quite helpful. Zeus would come grab branches and run off with them. Lizzy would go back and forth between the two fruit containers picking out plums to toss around and play with. Both kept me company, for about the first hour. As I started picking, plucking, and clipping I was not surprised that the tree had snapped. I’m sure Zeus’ tug-o-war games didn’t help but the branches were SO heavy with fruit it was a bit shocking.
This game of picking and trimming of the small branches felt like it was going on and on and on. I cannot even fathom how many hard unripe plums came flying off the tree and pummeled me during this process. I may have underestimated the size of this damn tree. It was also started to get sunnier and warmer. Nice. Whereas both dogs had started out keeping me company, Lizzy was now my lone supporter, moving every few minutes to stay in the shade now and out of the way of flying plums. Zeus had gotten bored enough that he finally figured out how to open the screen door himself (Lizzy and their cat both already know how) and had let himself back in to curl up for a nap on the couch. I don’t blame him, by the time I realized he had gone back inside it was already 1:00pm. I thought I would be down with this entire project by that time!
After a couple more hours of plucking and trimming off the smaller branches it was about time for the chain saws. I have never used a chain saw before. I considered the fact that I was in a bikini and flip flops and thought maybe I should change. But 4 hours of manual labor, and 5 hours into this project now, I just wanted to keep going. So I sat down, opened my new toys, unwrapped the users manuals, looked at the tools, and decided I could figure it out! I set the manuals aside, made sure the dogs were safely behind the gate on the other side of the yard, and went to town. I mean, doesn’t every woman wield a chain saw in a bikini?! I started with the regular one. It took me a second to figure out how to actually make it go (apparently these things have safety locks) and then I went for it. I was surprised at how many wood chips and shavings went flying but I had sunglasses on so I was good! I continued to get pummeled on the head by more falling fruit while chain sawing away. I’m not too shabby with a chain saw!
While I was at it, I decided I should also trim off the branches that were on the roof. This was a tricky situation that involved the telescoping chain saw, the telescoping clippers, and at times, the ladder. It is worth noting that I sustained by only “injury” of the day here. And it was from the manually telescoping clippers with the damn things got stuck and jammed back on me after much tugging! Looks like no push ups at the gym for me tomorrow – you know I’m heartbroken. I was quite proud of myself (still in a bikini and flip flops) for also not falling off the ladder as I pulled a couple giant pieces of tree down over the roof line and more hard plums pummeled me. I consider the whole not falling off the ladder thing a major accomplishment.
Finally, I realized I was just over it. It was 5pm, I had been doing manual labor for 6 hours and had spent a total of 7 hours on this today. There were tree branches and felled plums EVERYWHERE. And what was I going to do with all this crap? Definitely not enough room in the green bin. I decided to abandon any more trimming for today and got down to clean up. (I also decided to glance at the user manuals for the chain saws real quick – did you know that chain saws need oil? And do not come stocked with it??? I, did not. And I began to wonder if these little suckers would have been a tad easier to manipulate if they had – I also wondered if I was killing them by using them without any… hmmm…) I filled the green bin as much as I could and organized what was left. And realized that there was SO MANY plums in my bins that I can’t even move them myself because they are so heavy!!! So tomorrow I shall divide them up, get out some paper bags, and see if I can ripen these things up! But most importantly, I felt pretty bad ass chain sawing in a bikini.
Taking On the World 
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