January 20, 2011 No Rest For The Wicked-Old-People

I am finished with my dentist trips to Mexico. Finally. I had to make one last trip yesterday, but was only there for about 30 minutes. The dental lab was so busy on Monday they couldn't get my work done. No matter that we have to drive about 120 miles to get there.....I was getting real sick of having to get up at five a.m. for the trip. Oh, I had the alarm set for 6:30, but I'm always so afraid I won't hear it, or the electricity will go off and the alarm won't ring, so I am usually awake every hour on the hour from 1:00 a.m. on. By five, I finally just give up and get up.

Now it's time to get the winter place ready to leave empty for the summer. The first thing that needed to be done was to butcher prune the palo verde trees out back. They are very old, and suffer from poor pruning in the past. Whoever cut them before left long stubs at every cut, and Mr. Granny does the same thing.....even though I stand below, screaming "Cut at the collar! Cut where the branches join!" He doesn't listen to me, so I will go cut the stubs back the next time around, at least the ones I can reach.

The big branches that hang over the trailer were the tough ones. We had to put boards over the propane tank and the lettuce bed to protect them from falling limbs. It was necessary to remove everything that hung over the roof, so wind blowing the branches back and forth wouldn't cause damage to the structure. Mr. Granny has had a terrible fear of heights since he had his stroke, and I just don't have enough strength in my arms to hold the chainsaw overhead, so he finally got brave and went up the ladder, while I held onto his legs from below. He only dropped one branch on my head, but I got him back later, when I sawed a big one off that was closer to the ground. He didn't even realize it had taken his glasses right off as it fell! He didn't notice they were gone until we were on our way back from the first trip to the dump. We just knew they had fallen off into that huge container, and would be impossible to find. Luckily, we found them under the branches we were loading for our second trip.

We do have some more pruning to do on the trees, but the landfill will only take brush on Thursdays, and we already hauled three loads up there today. And we are tired. Besides cutting off all those big branches, everything had to be cut into lengths no longer then 5'. It was my job to cut them to length after Mr. Granny cut them off the tree. Thank heaven for electric chain saws. I only lost the chain twice today.

In between pruning branches and trips to the dump, I stripped the beds, washed the bedding and hung it out to dry, and baked a loaf of bread. We didn't get a chance to stop for lunch until around three this afternoon, so that freshly baked bread tasted extra good.






That's enough for one day!


26 comments:

  1. Congrats on all that dental work being completed! I for one, am anxious to see you get back home and your wonderful lush garden & harvests and any new projects you have planned!

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  2. Oh my goodness! I worked the emergency room in our small town and I'm terrified of chainsaws, I won't go near one. Funny story about the husband's glasses...I lose my all the time! The tree looks good...you are very brave!

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  3. Can't believe you're coming home already! It goes faster each year. There was an article in our paper about the town y'all go to for your dental work last week. Wish I had thought to send it to you right then and there, but I wasn't where I could access the Internet and now I can't find the link. *such is life*

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  4. Boy, that's a full days work for anybody!! After my nonsense today, I did get the other germinating table built...but, that's not real physcial work.

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  5. Erin, me too. I'm already packing up some stuff. If Mr. Granny gets the itch to leave, I want to be ready!

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    Lynda, I'm better around that kind of equipment than Mr. Granny is. I had to keep telling him to cut AWAY from his body, not towards it. I'm careful to cut down or away, and to make sure the electrical cord and potentially dangerous projectiles are not near the blade. I'm also the one in charge of the electric miter saw :-)

    I did, however, kill a coffee pot and a water pic this week.

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    Ribbit, was it a good article or a bad article?

    Was it this one?

    http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/health/2011/01/19/los-algodones-mexico-dentist-capital-world/

    Believe me, there are many dentists there I wouldn't trust. I did my homework, and I paid a bit more than some charge, but my dentist has great credentials, and her brother (right next door) even more so. She does mostly cosmetic dentistry, her brother does cosmetic and implants, and a surgeon is called in as needed and for root canals. She works by appointment only, where many of the dentists there have people out on the streets trying to get patients through their doors. I wouldn't let one of those touch my teeth!

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  6. Annie I found your blog a joy to visit and added it to my List of Blogs to visit for my other blogger friends and I'm following you to see what else your up to. :o) Ginny

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  7. I love this long, newsy post! Three things . . .

    1. You are brave working with that chainsaw. It scares me to even think of it. I shudder even more to think of working with my husband and a chain saw.

    2. A small apple tree and a small crabapple tree in my yard need pruning. You've reminded me that i need to get to it. They're small; no chainsaws required.

    3. You hung out clothes! Me, too. Mine didn't get dry, but I had the pleasure of hanging them out and bringing them in.

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  8. Hooray for no more dental work! I "hate" pruning large trees too. We have so many trees on our property and the hubs is prune happy. LOL

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  9. Ginny, thank you so much! I'm afraid I'm not up to much this winter, but stick around until I get back home and start my gardening again. Oh, please call me "Granny", everyone does. Annie is my fat little dachshund, I'm her "granny".

    I peeked at your blog, and I see you are an excellent cook! I'll be following you, maybe you can get me out of my winter rut, LOL!

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  10. Granny's coming home! Granny's coming home! (as I jump up and down on the couch ;-)) I can't wait to see your garden growing!

    You amaze me with all you can do in a day!

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  11. Oh, Dianefaith, you just say all those nice things 'cause you're my new BFF ;-)

    We had 75F and a light breeze today. My sheets were practically dry by the time I got them hung!

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  12. Meems, Mr. H is absolutely scary when it comes to trimming trees (or shrubs). I never know if I'll have anything left when he's finished!

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  13. Well, Liisa, you inspire me. So we're even :-)

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  14. You guys need to stop crawling around all over the place and just hire someone to mess with the trees. There's jobs I just won't let Don do around here, it's just not worth the risk. Cripes, you scare the H#@@ out of me!
    You guys sure get a lot done in a day. Congrats on finishing up with your teeth. I can drive hundreds of miles for fun, but don't think doing it to see a dentist would thrill me too much. Hope you at least got a fine meal out of it!
    :D

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  15. That sounds like a lot of work Granny. I remember when I was a kid having to haul slash all the time. My brother got the chainsaw gig and I got to haul it all. At the new house so far we have exactly one tree and I don't intend to trim it at all. I'm sure the fruit trees will have to be trimmed when they go in, but I'll do it by hand as motorized saws of any type scare me to death. All the trees will be dwarfs though so it shouldn't be too hard.

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  16. Just reading about the two of you trimming those branches makes me worry. Please be careful, both of you.

    I hope Mr. Granny says the word soon about making the trip back to WA. I know you would enjoy being close to your family and getting some seedlings started.

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  17. Sounds like a lot of work, you guys did good. I like the cactuses or is it cactai...hmm. Anyway, I like those prickly plants you have growing around your patio.

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  18. Sue, excuse me while I have a good laugh. Hahahahaha. There, I feel better now. Let me assure you, we'd love to hire someone. In this town, there are none who will take on jobs of any kind. In fact, I think I might just blog about that today! Thanks for giving me the idea ;-)

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  19. Daphne, pruning is not a job I enjoy, but I'm not afraid of the saw. One just has to be extremely careful. I have more fear of my gas range than I do of the chain saw (it's just a small electric saw. It only works with your finger held on the switch) after catching myself on fire this year. THAT was scary!

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  20. Rachel, I wouldn't tackle really large trees, but these desert trees don't have really huge limbs. We laughed when we dropped them on each other's heads! I'll be pushing for a mid-February trip home this year, a month sooner than usual.

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  21. Mr. H., that would be cacti. You sound like Mr. Granny. He likes the "pointy" ones!

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  22. ACK!! Sounds like a very busy day. Time to kick back and relax now. Glad you had some help, even though he didn't cater to your every whim.
    ~~Lori

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  23. Is that a blue sky I see, almost forgot what they looked like :-) Try not to work too hard Granny!

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  24. Your days leave ME prostrate. Glad you're ready to head back.

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  25. The job turned out great but holy smokes that seems like a scarey way to spend the day!

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  26. Lori, Mr. Granny never listens to me! I'm used to it.

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    Dan, blue sky, 75-degrees, gentle breeze. What more can one ask for?

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    Oh, Stefaneener, I know how hard you work :-)

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    Kitsap, not scary at all, except the part with Mr. Granny on the ladder. I usually won't allow that, but it had to be done in this case.

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