The Story of a Tree and a Geek

My husband is a computer geek. 

Now I mean that in the most complimentary way.  8-)  He is super smart with computers.  I've learned most of what I know about computers from him.

Neither one of us are outside people (reference older blog where I confessed to killing all things green.).  He cuts a mean lawn...he excels at that, but other stuff...well, he's a computer geek...how much can one man be good at?

Once upon a time, we were feeling extremely energetic.  It was the first spring after we had moved into the house here in AL.  We decided we needed to clear off some of what I call the 'south 40' part of our land.  [We have an extremely large back yard with some brush and trees on the back part of it.  (Also on this back yard is a gazebo, a large tool shed which houses his mower and other extraneous cluttering items, and his Sky Shed Pod).  The brush and trees are beyond all these items.]

We had some vines up in the trees that we started pulling down to clean up the trees and then I noticed this one tree that looked dead.  "Honey", I started...thinking, thinking, thinking. 

He says, "Huh?" ever so cautiously because he recognizes that word as meaning much more than just "Hi, Honey...". 

I say, "Look at that tree."  He says, "What about it?" 

I say, "It looks dead to me."  He says, "So?" 

I say, "But it could fall on the house..."  He says, "The house is WAY over there, it isn't tall enough to fall on the house."    (See picture below where I am standing about where the tree was and way on the other side of the gazebo is where the house is located.  Keep in mind that the gazebo was not there when we were looking at this dead tree.)

OK, so in my mind I was really thinking "The dead tree might hit the gazebo that I am going to suggest we build there (after we get all this stuff cleaned out of the south 40)".  But I couldn't say that yet. 

Finally, he sighs and says, "What do you want to do?" 

I am feeling all 'Paul Bunyany' so I say "Let's cut it down...I think WE can do this." 

He looks at me like I have three heads. 

In his head I am sure that he is going over his lack of outdoor tools for this kind of task.  I encourage him..."It's just a SMALL tree."  We look up at the 25 ft tree squinting at the sun in order to see the top of it.

"Hmmph"  I hear from him.  "If you want to try it, we will try to cut it down."  (See how he loves me.  8-)   So he goes to get his 'saw'.  See visual of saw below.

I ask him, "Is that all we've got?"  He assures me it is and I just kind of tilt my head and look at him and then at it.  "Well, if it is what we have, then we'll just have to do it with that." 

Now you must remember, it is the royal 'We' that I was talking about.  (We = Him)

He proceeded to start cutting the tree down and we are noticing how difficult it is to cut but he keeps plugging away at it.  Finally, it looks like maybe we could push it over and break it off.  After we push and push and nothing happens, he starts getting inventive and wraps a rope around it and starts walking away with the rope in his hands and pulling.  I'm thinking "He's gonna pull that tree right down on top of his head." 

Again, the tree would not be budged from it's standing position. 

But, after sawing a bit more, with me pushing on the tree and him pulling on the rope, the rope trick did it and the tree came crashing down.  Somehow, it even missed landing on the man with the rope.  (I kept worrying the whole time I was pushing that we had no idea what we were doing and I was probably going to get charged with murder when this stupid tree landed on him and killed him.)

[Side Note from story:  I am sure that we have always been amusing to the neighbors.  The first year we lived here we were always up to something in the backyard that was beyond our scope of abilities...and they were all just saying to themselves, "Why don't they just plant some flowers?"...HA!]

I noticed that it had an awful lot of green in the trunk.  OOPS.  I guess that tree wasn't dead after all. 

Later that spring the poor tree tried to grow new shoots and we (he) continued to cut them down to encourage it not to grow anymore.  Wow...these Alabama trees just won't give it up.  I thought just by my touching it that the stupid tree would die.

Now the stump looks like this.  It is finally dead.  HA! (Nearly three years later)

Last year he bought a chain saw so that he could eventually get it flat with the ground to make it easier to mow over.  As you can see, this is a slow process but his 'geekiness' is showing even here with those little criss-crosses that he has done with the blade.  8-) 

He has gone out today to finish the slaughter of the stump.  Bye-bye little tree.  8-)