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Blake saw something
Squash is great again
This week I have been on the court three times already and the Achilles tendon is holding up pretty good, in particular today I almost did not notice anything. I did do quite a number of stretches to make sure the tendon is nicely worked through and I took a little bit of Ibuprofen to take of the inflammation but that was yesterday today all was great.
I am starting to wonder what will be the next little thing I will be whining about …. I played with Jon and Serrat today and is was quite some fun. I need to be faster and get might standard shots tighter to the wall. I am in pretty good shape, I believe mostly due to the biking with keeps my fitness level, and of course because of my squash sessions. I beat up Jon as usual and won one against Serrat, and lost the other. I still think he does not really play 100% against me but mostly wants to make me run. Well, let’s see how it develops. Squash is great!
Carpenters, continued
After almost two months since we have taken the carpenters seriously as a thread to our home, I have reviewed the situation in the last few days. Regular visits to the attic and detailed inspections of the area shows that there is some very mild ‘dropping’ of saw dust and wood chips (no cleaning done upstairs to preserve) and no more sighting of living ants either.
For the moment we seem to be doing ok, though during the last very hot days we have been seeing more of the craftsmen around our house, on our balcony and in the lower levels. We have now increased the number of toxin boxes and have even put some up outside around the house.
Bottom line: the situation has dramatically improved, but we will have to continuously fight them to not have major invasion up there in the future. I think we can do that.
Ahh, finally another great summer day in Boston
squash!!!!!
First Serious Tree Work
Yesterday and today I started my first serious attack on the trees reaching close to and over our house. I started with the North side where the trees are reasonably young still they are very high. In the first round I cleaned out the lower branches hanging over our parking spot. I used the ladder and cut the branches while standing on the ladder. The work was relatively straight forward. I left reasonably long remainders of the branches, as I was planning on using them as steps to later climb higher into the trees.
In the next two steps I left the ladder and mounted into the tree always staying on the trunk and carefully moving upward. While mounting upwards I removed the big branches towards out house and finally I reached the point where I could just take off the top of the tree without risking the remainders to fall on our house. It is almost 10m high and I worked carefully keeping my legs and at least one arm to secure myself. The cutting in all cases went very smoothly and as a result now all of the trees branches reaching towards our house are gone. It adds a lot of light to the kitchen, Gisele’s room and the attic, but most important of all it gives the roof some sun and no more easy access for squirrels or ants.
And I also took some breaks…. watching Germany win against Australia (4:0) in the World Cup and having some quality bonding time with Blaki.
Achilles Tednon mostly Recovered: Squash
Yesterday I went on the court for the first time in about 6 weeks. It was wonderful. I had about 40 minutes by myself hitting the ball and then played with Jon (the guy with the fruit basket story). I made sure I did not push myself too hard nevertheless it was a 3:0 and another 1:0. Mike Z. showed up when we finished and we had a short chat. I will probably soon play with him.
I still need to take it easy but it looks like that I should be back in a few weeks at 95%.
Moving our Tree from the Front Yard
After very positive results from moving lots of bushes and other plants in the garden I was confident enough that I could move our last tree in the front yard to a the property line behind our shed to create a bit more privacy for our sun room. Ana was of course all excited about this idea.
I started maybe half an hour before the Laker vs. Celtics game which started at 20:00 (this was game two, the Celtics down by 1:0 in the NBA finals). First I stitch out one spade (a special long and narrow one for digging tranches) deep around the tree cutting all the roots in a maybe 0.5-0.75m radius around the about 2.50m high tree. The roots I cut were not particularly big. That went pretty well, but of course the tree did not move a bit when I tried to take it out. Then I dug a 2 spade deep trench around the tree lining up with my previous stitches. By now I was able to get a bit under the tree’s roots and when I finished all around the tree started to move slightly. I thought there must be still some big roots keeping it down below and I asked Guillelmo (who arrived yesterday for a 12 days visit) to help me bend the tree together with its roots in all direction and cut off everything below. I was at that point completely wet from the digging.
We were able to bend the tree over to each side and I found no more roots connecting the tree and we realized that it must be the weight of the dirt sticking to the roots, which made it so difficult to move the tree. We were barely able to get the tree out of the whole after I shook off as much dirt from the roots without destroying more roots. After some major force was applied we were finally able to load the tree onto the wheelbarrow and pushed it with a lot of effort up the slope behind our shed were it fit perfectly into the hole I prepared. Meanwhile, it had gotten dark and I was glad to sit on the sofa after a massive shower. I had gotten so dirty the big hole will be closed tomorrow. Photos will follow soon, stay tuned.
Then and Now — A Comparison
When we bought our house we saved the three most important pictures and to document the differences I went out in the garden today and reproduced then with our little camera. Of course they do not show exactly the same frame but it is pretty close and you can see what has changed since the last year. Take a look!
