Our Kongs arrived last week! Annie checked them out. Raven and Luigi had a dispute over who should touch them first. Neither won. I touched them first. I was going to stuff them all this weekend, but being there is the possibility of a Hurricane Fay, I had other things to get done.

I had to take down a tree that was around 15 feet tall. It was in a bucket, and the roots dug into the ground. I had intended on tipping it over and easing it out of the ground to replant; however, that’s not what happened.

What happened was when I tipped it over it did exactly what I was trying to avoid by taking it out of the ground before the hurricane got it. It got tangled up in the phone and electric lines to the house. Now this was not a pleasant experience for me. I had to pull the ladder over and take out the tree limb clippers and get up there on the ladder with that tree cutting thing to cut the tree out. I kept thinking, “Please don’t let me die by getting shocked.”

Well, my mantra paid off, and I didn’t get a shock, but I did realize that I couldn’t cut the roots out of the ground with my bread knife, nor a steak knife. I was lead to the shed where the electric saw was. I’d never used it, and hoped to God I didn’t have to go through an hour-long reading of directions as I did a few weeks ago with that other electric saw that I ended up not using. I just wanted to separate that tree from the roots. Period.

I opened the box, and there were ants in there and a direction booklet that started in Spanish. That annoyed me. If it’s sold in Lowe’s here in Florida, English should be first. Whatever. I paged over and found the English part, then threw it off and decided to go for it without instructions. It was hot and humid and I was getting cranky. After I set everything up, I figured out how to start the thing and shizaam! I separated that tree from the roots, and then cut it up into sections to throw away. There was no way I could dig a hole for that tree as big as it was and haul it around. Just not gonna happen. So I said sianara.

During the process, I found a basketball dog toy, which Ginger quickly claimed though both Luigi and Ollie thought it should be theirs. Wrong! It’s all hers!

Speaking of toys, somehow, Bunny Butt Taylor got Raven’s toy around her neck this morning and was wearing it around like a necklace. I noticed it when I was delivering breakfasts. She’s a peach, that Bunny Butt!

Dinner time.

Helen