Charming Farming…

March 1, 2016

Yesterday we got back home after spending our first night “on the farm”.  Charming moved the camper over to the new place a week or so ago and we thought the weather was finally warm enough that our hineys wouldn’t freeze off during the night.  Even though the camper has a heater, the nights are a few degrees colder there than where we now live.

So, we got to the farm around Noon on Sunday.  (In future blog posts, I’ll be referring to the new place as “the farm” even though it has no where near the acreage or animals that a legitimate farm would have…but it’s bigger than anything we’ve ever owned so a farm it is.)  After transferring our food, tools, an extra blanket and other supplies from our truck to the camper, we had a quick lunch of gluten-free ham and biscuits, and then got to work. 

We had a list of things to accomplish…Charming wanted to take down a very, very, very tall pine tree that is next to the area where we will park our vehicles.  First, in order to cut the tree, we had to remove the clothes line which was in the line of where the tree would (hopefully) fall.  I envisioned many hours of hard labor digging up the three clothes line posts.  Luckily, with the newly purchased second-hand tractor, I didn’t even have to pick up a shovel.  Charming jumped on that tractor like he was Oliver from Green Acres.  He maneuvered the tractor’s boom thingy (I’m pretty sure this is not the technical term for this tool)  over each post and popped those things out of the ground like you’d pop frozen ice cubes out of an ice cube tray.  No hard labor for me.  Yay!

Next, Charming had plans to climb up into the tree and cut off the top section, then work down to the middle section and cut that off, before finally finishing up by cutting down the bottom section.  Keep in mind that the pine tree is probably around 70 feet tall and my Sweatie Pie (no, that’s not a misspelling, it’s what I actually call him when he’s hard at work) weighs ummmmm….let’s just say he’s a big boy (but I love every ounce of him, truly).  Keep in mind, as it will be important at the end of my story, that I repeatedly…at least seven times…asked Charming if he didn’t think it was a better idea to get a tree removal company to take down the tree rather than us attempting to do it ourselves and possibly getting injured in the process.  He assured me that, because he’d helped take down many trees for firewood when he was in his teens, it wouldn’t be a problem for him now.  To which I responded, “Well, ok then”.

So, Charming climbed up into the tree and found a good perch.  He dropped a rope, weighted with a wrench, down to me so I could tie the buck saw as well as the wrench onto the rope for him to pull back up and use to cut the tree.  He sawed for a short while and got about four inches into the tree before the sap gummed up the saw’s teeth.  At that point, he decided (hoped) that maybe he had weakened the tree enough that “Wonder Tractor” would be able to pull it over if he hooked a cable from the tree to the tractor.  So he sent down the rope again and I tied the cable to the rope and sent it back up to him to fasten to the tree.  Then he climbed down the tree to hook the cable up to the tractor and started to move the tractor slowly.  A small limb that crossed the cable broke off, but the tree didn’t budge an inch.  However, during the attempt, the cable had snapped and flew up into the tree.  Charming had to get off the tractor and knock the cable out of the tree with a ladder and a long piece of lumber.  He climbed back up the tree to refasten the cable, then climbed back down to give it a second try.  Again, the tree didn’t budge.  This didn’t seem to be nearly as much fun as pulling up the clothes line posts. 

I can say one thing’s for certain with my Charming.  He won’t beat his head against a brick wall (or a tree, in this case) if he knows he’s fighting a losing battle.  Since it was getting dark, he decided to climb the tree one final time to tether the cable from the tree to the tractor.  This would make the tree lean in the direction he wanted it to fall, just in case the tree decided to fall during the night.  We had a late supper in the camper.  After that, Charming and I were so tired (Charming from climbing up and down the tree and me from the stress of watching him climb up and down the tree) that we went to bed shortly thereafter.  Charming got up around midnight and again at around three o’clock.  I, being a light sleeper, woke up whenever he got up.  Finally, he ate some cereal around 5:00 a.m. and then took Jax outside to roam around the property.  (It’s amazing, you can do this when you live on a farm because the nearest neighbor lives a whole field away from you…and no one will think you’re some kind of roaming lunatic or a criminal.)

When Charming came back, he woke me up and said, “You know, I think maybe we should just get a tree company to come in and take that tree down.”  To which I responded, “Sure, Honey, I think that’s an excellent idea.” 

And the moral of this story is…If you feed an idea to your dear husband enough times, he’ll begin to think he came up with that idea on his own.

Charming lines up the "boom thingy" with the clothes line post.

Lifting the boom thingy makes the clothes line post pop out of the ground.

Then a quick turn around on the tractor to put the post next to the shed.

If you look really close you'll see Charming way up there in the tree (top center).

During the day Jax found a girl friend.  She belongs to our nearest neighbor.