Currently, we are in the midst of a heat stroke streak where it's been 100+ for 23 of the last 26 days, and the forecast calls for 105+ for the next 10. I'm used to heat - I come from the Mojave Desert, for crap's sake. But this is a different heat. The sun shines like it's leaning on you here. Like it's rightthereonyourshoulderandyoucan'tgetaway.
Mom and I decided we REALLY NEEDED to get the red tip photinias yanked out of my side yard NOW. Why? Because we're losing brain cells every day. We have no common sense anymore. This is what the yard looked like prior to all the yanking and hacking:
(There's one more to the left that didn't quite make the shot, but you'll see that in a minute.)
 |
| Suspect red-tip photinias... |
|
|
So we gathered our tools (gloves, pruner, crowbar, tow rope, Jeep...), soaked the ground around the small one and went to work. I'll let the photos speak for what happened next.
 |
| Smallest of the red-tips. |
 |
| Mom stopping imaginary traffic - we were smart enough to do this on a weekday morning so no neighbors would see us. |
 |
| Annnnnnnd yer outta there! |
So you can see...that worked out pretty good. We were thinkin' we were pretty impressive. This turned out way better than what I had envisioned. That would have involved me snapping the top off the bush, and sailing down that street right there, past all my neighbors while they wondered "Where the hell is she going that fast, and what the hell is that she's dragging behind her?!" But, this didn't happen, and for that I am grateful. While still high on the rush of adrenaline from yankin' that sucker out, we decided "Let's keep going!" even though we hadn't soaked any other of the bushes. So we hooked up the tow rope, and started tugging away.
 |
| Locked and loaded... |
 |
| PULLLLL pull pull pull....(noticing a bit of smoke from the Jeep even though you can't see it in this picture) |
 |
| BOOM! Outta there. |
 |
| Victory is ours!!! |
So now we're two for two. That last one was a little more firmly entrenched than the first...and my Jeep was smelling a bit like burnt oil and we were afraid we'd do some serious damage to it, so we put it away, knowing that the last one would be the worst of all to take out. We weren't wrong. It had an actual TRUNK on it. So we hacked it back...tried leaning on it, pulling on it, and then I got out the pick-axe. Had to free up a big root underneath, so that was a logical tool, right?
 |
| Winner. |
 |
| Loser. |
As it turned out, I smacked the root, the axe bounced off a couple times, then bent into a completely unusable shape. At that point, I was done. I put all the tools in the garage and went inside. Mom came down the next morning, looked at the axe and laughed. Right after she finished laughing, she got a gleam in her eye as she decided we needed to go to Home Depot NOW and get a reciprocating saw. Oh yes...we did. We got that, a pedicure and a sledge hammer over the course of two days. So, back to the saw... we took the saw home and got to work:
 |
| Mom's "I mean business." face |
 |
| This thing is goin' DOWN. |
 |
| Maybe a different angle will work better? |
 |
| WOOOHOOO!!! |
As you can see, we didn't get the root out. It's still there, chuckling at me quietly when I go past it. I need to drill some bigass holes in that sucker and KILL IT.
 |
| And pedicure time. |
So there you have it. Persistence pays off...even if a lack of common sense prevails. I hope brain cells regenerate. Quickly.
Oh...the sledge hammer? Well, here's this:
 |
| I got a sledge hammer and I'm not afraid to use it. |
Fortunately, there are no photos of me using it...and I did use it...successfully. Gotta get those posts out from where the deck was, right? Well, they're gone.
Trust me when I tell you that I'll keep you posted.
