job done

The Henchman has gone from the back garden.  No, we are not the victims of metal theft. Suddenly at lunchtime the Systems Administrator suggested that we could do the pruning this afternoon.  I'd given up even thinking about it, apart from as a distant concept to be grappled with sometime in the future, as strong wind followed gale, punctuated by rain, but the SA said the wind wasn't too bad, while it had stopped raining and the sun had even come out.

We took off the whole large branch that was growing out over the lawn, crowding the neighbouring river birch, and thrusting a casual side branch in front of the Parrottia persica.  The way to tackle substantial branches is in stages, so that the weight of each individual section is not too much as it falls.  Even so, the tree is full of sap, and a couple of the thicker chunks dug gouges out of the lawn and border as they landed.  You would not want to have been standing underneath at the time.  Our Ginger had followed us down the garden, and did go and sit exactly where the branch needed to drop, until I carried him away and posed Llewyn Davis style while the SA worked.

We daren't take the tractor and trailer down the slope in the back garden, since the tyres would chew up the lawns dreadfully, and the tractor would never make it back up the last, steepest part of the slope.  The tractor is not really very well.  It will only go at a sedate crawl on the flat, and certainly isn't up to climbing hills.  It needs a service, but since we don't have anywhere under cover to work on it that is yet another job that needs a dry day.  As a compromise in the meantime the trailer is parked on the level in the front garden, and prunings destined for the bonfire have to be hauled up the hill by hand, which is still quicker than carrying them all the way to the bonfire heap. Only the smallest twigs are rubbish, anything of an inch diameter counting as kindling, and anything the thickness of my wrist being future firewood.

I cut up what I could cut with the bow saw, and the SA will section the largest logs with the chainsaw.  That's a task better done by the workshop than out in the garden, since it creates a surprising amount of sawdust, which is not what you want heaped on the lawn.  As the years have passed and the garden has matured we've become much more beady eyed and opportunistic about what garden waste will do for the stove.  Rhododendron trunks, Paulownia prunings, hawthorn and hazel out of the hedge, there's no point in wasting them on the bonfire when we can burn them inside.

After we'd finished with the gean I eyed up the hazel hanging over the ditch bed, and persuaded the SA to at least try and get the Henchman in there.  The SA was initially concerned that the feet would sink into the wet soil, but I argued that if I could walk on the bed with two feet it would be fine for me to do the pruning with my weight spread over four.  We had to undo the struts and collapse the platform, then had a struggle to erect it at the back of the bed when we found we'd carried it in the wrong way round and were going to have to turn it through a hundred and eighty degrees.  First of all the top snagged on a branch, and then when we lay it down to free it from the tree it became tangled in a large shrubby honeysuckle, along with the SA who claimed to be stuck. We got it up, wedged between the fence and a rather good female form of narrow leaved Aucuba which I don't see for sale nearly as much as it deserves to be.  The SA stood at the bottom poised in case the platform started to tilt, and I cut off as much of the overhanging hazel as I could reach.

And that was my lot.  The SA rejected my suggestion that maybe we could shuffle the platform both ways along the bed so that I could reach some more branches, saying that they were too high and too thick.  But we did put the Henchman away by the sheds where it is supposed to live, so that it is no longer cluttering up the back garden.

We do now have a plan B for the hazel, to see if we can hire a pole mounted chainsaw for a couple of days.  I didn't even know there was such a thing, which certainly didn't feature in Writtle's 2002 arboriculture module, until I saw one at my former place of work.  I immediately coveted it, but believe they are expensive.  We wouldn't need one very often, and seldom-used two-stroke engines tend to have stopped working by the time you need them, so hiring would probably make more sense.  Unless you can get electric ones.  I can never start pull-cord motors, but would be happy to use an electric pole mounted chainsaw.  The blades would be a long way from where I was, so, supping with the devil, I would be using a very long spoon.