13.05.2022 Tree? What tree?

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Friday 13th 50F. A grey day is promised. Woke at 5am. Dozed until 6.30. Aching all over.

 The worktop is still in the middle of the kitchen but I'm getting used to it. At least I can move all around it now. I still have to make a decision on appliance positioning. The old sink position blocked the view. 

 Except that there was no view! Thanks to a tarpaulin over the window! A tragedy I am still working to alleviate. The beech hedge seems to have forgiven me for cutting it back so hard. We badly need rain. With a 100mm [4"] shortfall according to the news. The farmers are worried.

 It might be a good day for working outside. I can knock the longer grass down with the strimmer and then use the mower. Much of it has never been cut properly due to my wife's many "obstacles." No doubt to the enjoyment of the wildlife. 

 Now it is finally clear I can make it more presentable. We lifted a metal sheet once. Which was just lying under the big Horse Chestnut. There were literally hundreds of salamanders packed together under there! So we quickly covered them up again. 

 The pond seems to be leaking after years of being completely ignored. The level is steadily dropping. It is in semi-darkness under the trees and full of decades of leave fall. I gently raked out the top foot of solid vegetation but it still looks awful. Not an ideal spot for a pond. They need light to flourish. 

 I have several very large, parabolic TV dishes [up to 2.2m Ø] and always wanted to use one for a pond/giant birdbath. Not sure where this might happen given the Horse Chestnut's vast "acreage." It dominates the entire western garden.  It would be quite funny to cut it down and place the dish on the remaining stump! That would open up a new vista to the towering willows my wife planted as sticks on the boundary.

 With the micro-moth leaf devastation the Chestnut is an eyesore for most of the year! My wife spent years bagging leaves [in vain] to try and stop the leaves turning brown. 

 This huge tree is all I can see out of the fully glazed gable end. Which I fitted myself, from "architectural salvage" probably 20 year ago. The central. double glazed pane is over 160cm high. I lifted this huge pane myself while climbing a ladder!

 My wife soon covered the glazed gable end with permanent, opaque curtains! Stapled into place. 

 After my wife's death this was one of my first "acts of defiance" to rip them all down! Along with the tarpaulins and permanent curtains stapled over the kitchen and bedroom windows. Not to mention the curtains stapled over the internal, glazed doors.

 This image is taken from a distance to show the scale of the Horse Chestnut. Which is the huge mound with the "candle" flowers in the middle. The big hazel is in front of it. The two small mounds on the right are decorative shrubs in the front garden and about 12' high.

 I am still using the gable end as a temporary storage area. So it is not exactly photogenic at the moment. The polythene, moisture barrier on the ceilings has disintegrated from years of UV exposure. Plans to cover the ceiling in boards never happened. So the plastic is still hanging down in places. I'd need a stepladder to tear it all down. I'd need a much taller ladder outside to clean these windows!

 We could have been enjoying this view for two whole decades! I plan to cover the sloping ceilings with white, wood-wool/cement boards. This requires new battens at the correct spacing. So is another "roundtoit" for the moment. I have bought the Rockwool. To complete the insulation when I am ready.

  8.20 50.7F Time for a walk.

 10.15 55.6F  Today I went the "wrong way" down the road. Then up the steep track to the forest. Where I saw a pair of deer. There were occasional sprinkles of rain in the air but nothing to worry about. A loop by the forest harvester's tracks brought me back to the familiar, main entrance to the woods. 

 Quite cool throughout. Though it is brightening now I am back at home. I was gone for an hour and three quarters. Mostly over rough ground. So quite a decent walk. 170 pictures in grey, slightly misty conditions? Expect no masterpieces! 

 There is a bank holiday today and the supermarkets are closed. Starvation is not imminent.

 Our hero [?] has started to demolish the Horse Chestnut. That damned tree cost my wife countless hours of hard labour. About a third of the branches are gone. All on the house side of the tree. I have to keep pausing to recharge the DW chainsaw's battery.

  If S&M and still monitoring my blog and want to get in touch they should email me: christryke at g mail com.  I wont publish your comments for [obvious] privacy reasons. I am not strong enough to phone you yet. 

 16.00 59F. Half the tree has gone now. I'm resting while the chainsaw battery recharges. It is hard work and potentially dangerous dropping the bases of the largest branches. Up to 18" in diameter. Being so bent they are highly unpredictable when they drop. 

 I try to remove most of the minor branches first. It is frowned upon to chainsaw from a ladder. I am being extremely careful and placing the ladder on the safe side of the tree from any branch I cut. Tying the ladder on is also sensible. 

 If a wayward branch knocks the ladder away I'd have to drop onto a tangle of branches.

 BTW: The trunk is 225cm in circumference at my waist height. Which is 72cm in diameter or 28".

17.30 The "rest" turned into a nap. I have had a cup of tea and a roll. Now back to that tree!

 18.45 Three more big branches down but the new chain is already blunt. I'll see if the builder's merchant is still sharpening chains on their machine. They seem to have a lot of new staff and layout. So may have dropped the old skills and services of a "proper" builder's merchant. I am getting tired. Time to call it a day before I do something silly.

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