October 29 - Tree Clean-up

        Earlier this week Fleur-Ange had our two old Ash-leaved Maples, between the house and the barn, taken down. In order to save money we had the tree service just cut down the trees and leave them to be cleaned up. They did cut up the large parts of the lower trunk as my chain saw was not large enough to cut through them but smaller bits were left along with all the smaller branches. 

        Yesterday, October 29, I skipped art class and gym time to work on cleaning up all the smaller branches. I worked from 9:00 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon on chopping branches, moving the smallest ones to the burn barrel, moving the larger branches to several piles, and burning the smallest branches and twigs in the burn barrel. During that time I only took a 5 minute break at lunch time to grab a piece of cold pizza to eat while I fed the fire and then another quarter of an hour to help in the barn when the farrier came to trim the donkey’s hooves as well as the goats hooves. By the end of the day I was feeling quite fatigued and made a couple of bad moves with the machete so I decided to quit while I was still whole. Fortunately the machete did not cut me as I had on heavy gloves and the blow was not too hard. 

        I did find, during the day, that the machete was much better than the larger heavier axe for about 95% of the cuts I wanted to make. I used the axe only about 3% of the time and them my little hand limb saw for the remaining 2% of the cuts. The chain saw cuts will come later when there is someone else around.    

        Having worked over 7 hours at the job left me quite tired and a bit sore in the arms and back but, for some reason, my left instep was the most painful. I do not understand why as I was not on my feet any more than a usual work day but the pain would not go away. I iced the foot, elevated it, massaged it and rolled it on my roller to try to ease the pain but it is still with me, fortunately to a much lesser degree, this morning. Hope it improved before the half marathon this coming weekend!
        
        Maybe a photo or two will be added later but I did not take any yesterday. I even gave up the opportunity to take a photo of a little wood frog that I found while working.

        
        I was way too dedicated to getting that mess cleaned up. I still have lots to do but will not do another 7+ hour chopping marathon.