the weekend

Saturday, it rained, snowed, and sleeted, so it was a good day to stay inside and finish my income taxes, which I did. I'll go over them one more time to make sure I have not missed anything, then I will print the forms and mail them in later this week.

Sunday, the weather was a big improvement over Saturday. It was sunny, but a little on the cool side. When I walked the dogs at 9 AM, I could have worn gloves because it was that cool.

I did some yard work in the morning. I picked up the branches that fell in the yard over the winter, then I considered the 25-foot tree trunk that broke off and fell perfectly into the vee formed by another tree where its trunk split in two. The broken tree was lodged tightly in the vee and it was at a difficult height to work with (about 5 feet above the ground).

I thought that the broken tree would be easy to cut apart because it was rotting, which is why it fell in the first place. I tried chopping it with an axe, but that was a difficult task because I had to chop it so high off the ground. So, I abandoned the ax and got out my big 5-foot crowbar. I stuck the crowbar in the vee below the broken tree and managed to loosen the broken tree from the vee, but I could not get enough leverage to lift the tree out of the vee.

So, I climbed into the brush behind the vee tree, took a deep breath, and lifted the broken tree out of the vee. I managed to lift it out of the vee and drop it to the ground. Wow! That was a real workout as was evident by my heavy breathing for the next five minutes or so!

After I caught my breath, I dragged the tree into the woods across the street and called it a day yard work wise.

I took Laurie shopping and cleaned the mess in the bathroom where a cat knocked some soil from the aloe vera cactus plants. My original aloe vera is having babies for the second time and one of her babies is having babies (grandchildren). (About 8 years ago, I bought a little aloe vera plant - about 6 inches tall - at Job Lots for a buck or two. It is huge now and has spawned lots of children. I gave some away, but still have four of the kids that are catching up with Mom in size. Amazing!)

We walked the dogs around 3 and I tuned in the Sox game on the radio and television. They won again and are off to a 5-1 start. For a change, all the moves they made during the winter are all working as planned. The pitching has been just about perfect and the defense has been excellent! Go Sox!