900 Trees Later...

So... have you ever removed 14 huge trees... 14 huge trees complete with a wasp's nest in the cracks of the driveway? 14 Huge trees with wasp nest of a condenmed house because it was someone's cat house?

No?

I took on that great enjoyment today.

It wasn't actually that bad. Hard work to say the least, but not torture. Maybe that was partly due to the fact that I was the only one on our crew who didn't get stung... I was told at one point to take one for the team. I offered to roll around on the concrete, but then thought twice.

I quite enjoyed the comments from the last post. So sad for those of you who read it and didn't comment. I forgive you. I had a good laugh at the repeated "this is why you don't have a girlfriend" pointer. Ahhh yes... girlfriends... keep cigar out of nose and I'm sure to have a girlfriend. I have solved all my problems.

Probably, I shouldn't keep going on that or the next batch of comments will be all my other shortcomings in the romantical area. But since I am not at all interested in having a girly friend I'm not too concerned at this point in time. Maybe I should at least learn a little bit for when that time comes so I'm not a blundering dolt.

But that just wouldn't be keeping with the pattern of my life and there will be much less to laugh hysterically about.

Today I did something a little new. I slathered after-shave soothing cream all over my arms. It was my only option. You see, when you run a chipper all day long your arms get ripped to shreds. Add that to grabbing huge armfuls of spruce and not only are your arms getting whipped, but they are getting poked from a billion little needles. I now refer to my forearms as my two open wound stubs.

Anyway, if you are ever working on spruce, you will notice that they are really sappy. When the sap hits your skin and dries it turns into this strange layer of blackness. Interesting, really. But to get said layer of blackness off you need something akin to sandpaper. Then you must apply said sandpaper to your already open-wound like forearms and scrub like there's no tomorrow.

They have this neat thing called.... called... I can't remember... that has little bits of sand and a powerful soap like substance that you can use to get grease and crap off your hands. I was worried about using this in the shower after work today because... like I said... vigoursly scrubbing sand into your wounds doesn't feel all that great.

I went and found some of that soap stuff and was relieved when I read that it had orange in it. I don't know why I stopped there, but I decided that if there is orange in some sort of soap product it obviously doesn't have sand in it.

I proceed to dump that on my arms and I went to town. Quickly I began to stiffle a scream as this orange does actually come complete with tiny bits of what I will now refer to as "acid sand". Ah yes... scrub acid sand into "open wound stubs". That's exactly what I wanted to do.

Since I didn't want to walk around in public with giant sticky black blobs on my arms I just grit my teeth and went for it anyway. Alas... let's have a moment of silence for those last few layers of skin I have forever removed from my body.

I finish my shower and dry off only to realize my forearms are burning like crazy -- much more the usual and I need to take immediate evasive action. I need something soothing and I need it now. The only product within immediate reach was my dad's fancy soothing aftershave balm. I trusted he wouldn't mind and slathered up my arms in this stuff! Woo!!! That worked like a charm!! A cool refreshing sensation envoloped my "open wound stubs" and miraculously restored them to slightly operational forearms. Still they are hideous to look at, but at least they feel cool, refreshed and smell overpoweringly manly.

And now, I'm off to bed. To enjoy my cool forearms and maybe sneak a little sniff a couple of times tonight.

Oh yes... the picture for the day is.... Nichole, myself and Natalie looking cool as ever. Picture taken in my beautiful California home.