A Weekend Of Wood

It's been a while since I’ve written an entry, and I doubt this one will be particularly long either. There is too much work to be done!

Last week was fairly standard, work, tests and revision. Nothing fantastic. However my weekend is something to mention.

Saturday

Spent this day trying to work out how to get some branches that were about 30 feet high, several meters long, and some up to half a foot thick off a tree. Not because they were dead, but because my mum wanted to “open up the garden”. We cut the lower ones off with a saw / axe – no big deal. But then how to get the higher ones down? The first plan was climbing into the tree and cutting them down....no can do – danger factor. Next plan…some kind of extendable chainsaw? My Dad hired one, but it was a girls tool, no good for cutting anything. In the mean time I had managed to throw a rope up and over one of the higher branches and tie it. Of course without cutting there is no way to get the rope down. But then me and my brother started to joke about just pulling the rope, and therefore the branch, straight off the tree….and my Dad made the always fatal mistake of telling me it can’t be done.

So with the nylon rope tied around my waist and my brother holding on, we ran away from the tree as fast as we could….and in the end…SNAP! The whole branch came down! We were mighty proud. So we repeated with many other branches, but they got harder and harder, as they got longer and longer. Firstly because I had to throw about 60 foot of thick rope into the air that was attached to a log that was about 3kg AND aim it to fall over a branch 30 foot up. And secondly because we were trying to pull down longer, thicker and generally tougher ones. But we were victorious! Thus ended the day.

Sunday

Sunday was started dull and got better. I decided to head up to the bluebell wood in the evening with Rose to take some pictures before they all disappear, even though it was overcast and raining! They were putting on a pretty impressive display of colour despite the conditions. However I managed to muck up a lot of the pictures due to the very low light levels, and using a lens that demands bright sunshine. However here you can see a couple of the best.

After admiring the natural beauty surrounding us we got down to being big kids. This included chucking pine cones at each other, finding sticks to hit against trees and of course hiding. After exhausting this activity we went to find the biggest logs possible and lift them. Here is Rose’s attempt (for those of you wondering…look at the background for your answer!):

My (more genuine) attempt at lifting logs shall be put up at a later date. It was good fun, and probably a very silly thing to do, which makes it better really!

Then after this we took the long way home as it was a lovely evening, but mostly as I miss judged the distance. So ended our lovely evening. Oh, no, just after that I was cheated out of a cuppa tea! Damn you Rose!

J.