Monday, May 8, 2006 - Mon, 8 May 2006

I spent the last few days fighting a disease. My poor Schubert Chokecherry tree came down with Black Knot. I somehow missed seeing it during the winter and the tree service wouldn’t prune it, telling me instead that it would be best to remove the tree.

Well I wasn’t one to give up on this beautiful tree we’ve had for 20 years. So I went out and bought a pole tree pruner for about $50: a really neat device that extends to 16 feet and has a pulley system that lets you pull a rope from the bottom and multiplies the force to enable it to pull the blades and cut off up to a 1 and 1/4 inch branch.

Day 1 allowed me to prune for about an hour before the thunderclouds came out. I really didn’t feel like being under a tree with a 16 inch pole with metal on the end during a thunderstorm. So I hastily put everything away. Day 2 was another hour, before a tiny bolt popped off into the shrubs rendering the pruner inoperable. I spent the next 2 hours cutting the branches small enough to stuff into 2 large orange garbage bags.

Day 3: would there be a day 3? The pruner has a lifetime guarantee. Hopefully that means that 2 days after I bought it they would give me a new bolt. But I’m starting to think. I’m about half way done. I’ve got another 4 hours to go. A few days of rain coming up. The tree may not survive anyway. And to top it off, other than the nice weather I had, I don’t even enjoy doing this! So why on earth did I ever decide to spend 4 hours already (and even contemplate 4 more hours) when my time would be much better (and more enjoyably) spent working on Behold.

I guess I just can’t help myself sometimes. I’ll never learn.