Dozers are awesome! Seriously! They. Are. AWESOME!! They can do just about anything. They can knock over a tree in 2 seconds flat. They can even knock over trees that you don’t want knocked over-in 2 seconds flat. Yeah. Sometimes big boys and their toys get carried away… and then the trees are carried away by the dozer!! Just a teeny, little problem we encountered when Jim first started using the dozer.
Jim was a happy guy though and as much as he enjoyed playing with his new toy, he did get work done. And then some… He LOVED knocking stuff over and occasionally he would get carried away and everything in his path was fair game. Whoa, Nellie! Jim and I had to have a talk. A refocusing talk. A less playing and pay attention talk. We had to have this talk more than once…and a few trees were lost….Ok, more than a few….
This is a picture of what was supposed to be a small brush pile of a few small trees!!! But I remained calm. Hey, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!!!
Initially, I didn’t think it mattered much. He was still learning…and I didn’t want to be referred to as the warden again, now did I??? So, I waited and watched patiently. Well, I tried to watch patiently…. but every time a huge tree got knocked over as collateral damage, I cringed. Ok, I might’ve done a little more than cringe. After the first few big trees hit the ground, I might have done a little more than that. I might have thrown my hands in the air and displayed a look on my face that was slightly less than kind. I am trying to be honest here people! No judging! I didn’t curse or throw things or even stomp my feet but I’m pretty sure my displeasure was quite obvious.
The following pictures are how I had imagined that the pastures would look. Nice trees left for shade everywhere and small brush piles scattered about.
It was a lovely plan and seemed so simple..
Maybe it was too simple of a plan because most of the pastures didn’t end up looking like this…
I tried different ways to save the trees actually. We walked around for what seemed like hours discussing our plans and figuring out different ways to get the pasture space we wanted within the natural barriers of trees. Yet, somehow that plan flew out the window every single time that dozer started! I thought I would…ahem… help Jim remember the plans by tying red ribbons around certain trees. Who can’t see red ribbons?? Well, apparently my husband cannot when he’s on his dozer.
So, I tried marking the trees with spray paint. Seemed like a smart idea. I mean, who can’t see bright orange spray paint? Well, when your up in a dozer with limbs crashing, trees falling and dust flying everywhere I guess it’s a little bit harder. At least, that’s what Jim said….but it’s still BRIGHT ORANGE spray paint people! Anyway, it didn’t make much of a difference and I was beginning to think my husband was color blind…or just plain blind.
Many times Jim saw my vague displays of frustration and would stop the dozer and patiently explain to me that to save this tree or that group of trees he had to sacrifice this one or that. Or the space between those trees wasn’t wide enough and that tree had gotten knocked over. Or occasionally he said all the roots were intertwined so all the trees came down at once. It was all very logical. I, however, was not very logical at that point though.
Somehow my very handsome husband, who is also very charming, always managed to soothe my frustrations and make me feel like I was overreacting… Until he knocked over another tree that I had marked and then I was back to being a crazy shrew that he had calm down yet again. It was a vicious cycle and not my one of my finer moments. (Again, no judging people! I’m being honest here!)
So, eventually I decided to keep busy with other stuff and not be a backseat dozer driver. I mean, I did want to remain married to this handsome, charming tree killer. Ha! Sorry, I couldn’t resist that! That also meant having to look away (ALOT) when trees were falling. That made my husband a much happier person though! And it made my marriage a weee bit happier as well.
We were back to the happy family…as long as I didn’t watch him work. And when I didn’t see the process, but looked at the finished version….well, it was lovely! I mean, reeeaaallly nice and lovely. Jim was doing a GREAT job despite dealing with a crazy lunatic on a daily basis (I am referring to myself there, just in case you couldn’t figure that out.) In fact, if you factored in that he was having to deal with me, well then,…he was doing an AMAZING job! Look at how nice this pasture turned out.
If only our tree troubles had ended there…but with us there is always, ALWAYS, something else that comes along…
