be careful what you wish for . . .

a little background. When we moved in 12 years ago, our front yard had two 'areas' of pines. Pines that wafted just a tad too much during storms. Spindly nasty looking pines that needed to be removed and were. All this predicated a trip to Tree City for a "fast growing big tree". Be careful what you wish for. We bought and planted a very tiny Laurel Oak in 1996. It is now a towering monstrosity, threatening to take over my little corner of the world. It looms down over the walk way into the house, it blocks the sun and kills the grass, it's knickers got twisted during one of the hurricanes, its limbs stretch out over the roof, it is a kid climbers dream, a mothers nightmare. As I said, be careful what you wish for. Fast forward. I was out early this morning mowing the lawn. Normal procedure, except that it apparently rained last night and every time I made a loop under the tree, I got dripped upon. Well, it is Wednesday, here that means vegetative garbage pick up day, so I get the bright idea to 'prune' the monster. Now if it thought about making me damp before, with a ladder, clippers and saw in hand it let loose with a torrent of water. Each time I positioned the ladder and jockeyed into place, it frantically shook more and more water in my direction. I was blinded by the cascade. Glasses off, I attacked once again, this time it retaliated with rubber limbs. I'd reach for one to lop off and it would spring back out of reach. Precariously perched on the ladder, gasping at wiggling limbs was like grabbing for greased pigs at the county fair. Undaunted, I managed to pile up a fairly good sized mass of debris. That is when the revolt entered full tilt. I figured that the now half sawed off major limb would be much less resistant if I twirled it around and around a few times. Wrong. Water spewing, the tree retaliated when let go and spun in the opposite direction, throwing me off the ladder and onto the lawn. How humiliating to be bested by a tree. Sitting on the ground looking up, I was glad for two things: nothing was broken and I heard no laughter which means, maybe, just maybe, no one noticed the debacle. Nursing my pride, I spent the rest of the morning doing crosswords on the pool deck. Much safer by far. Hurrumph!