So before you start thinking the title of this post would be a good description of our adventure in Tennessee, let me point out some of our successes. 1. the driveway is cleared of boulders 2. the path is done...ish 3. the shed is awesome. 4. the neighbors might think were a bit weird but they generally like us. On Saturday afternoon after a day of messing around with my family, Lance and I are hard at work clearing a stump that is on the foundation line of one of the houses. At some point near the completion of this arduous task we decide it is time to clear out some of the dangerous trees before we begin the next phase which is digging out the home sites. These trees pose a couple of threats. 1. They are leaning precariously ready to fall at the slightest breeze 2. They are too close to the houses and pose a fire danger. The worst of these trees was right next to the shed as you see in the picture and it was leaning with its center of gravity about 3 feet off center in a shedly direction. After spending some time measuring and calculating the arc of fall based on wind speeds and the earths rotation we determined we could cause the tree to die in the direction we wanted. We tied our pull lines with expert precision, sharpened our axes and began the duty of felling a tree. The hinge cut was made with care and the tree was primed to fall. This is when nature made the impromptu choice to cause the tree to fall back into a shedly direction. Now at this point it became apparent that we had erred in our calculations and needed to change course with utmost expedience. Well long story short we tied off another guy line to a tree the opposite side of the shed and cut a new hinge to guide the tree in a more prudent direction leaving the near miss as you see in the picture. Oh, and Lance went swimming with his phone. The phone that just finished drying out and was nearly functional again after he'd left it in a massive downpour.
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So we were sitting at our camp for one of our all too few breaks from the monumental task of digging when we heard a quick flutter of wings and a thud. What we found, landed about 4 feet from where I was sitting, was this enticing meal. The dragon fly was about 5 inches long and the butterfly was easily its equal in mass. Upon closer inspection the dragon was mounted on the back and chewing off the head of the butterfly. This went on for about 2 minutes and then the dragon with meal in tow, flew from the ground an landed on a nearby tree to sup. No more than 5 minutes after we see a wing flutter to the ground and the dragon was nowhere to be seen. |
DanSnacking on snakes and not *not* licking toads. Archives
December 2012
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