Things are not always as they seem

Now that fall is here I’m in the midst of my unending quest to get my yard into shape. I recently decided to prune some dead tree limbs and get the old homestead in shape. Of course all the lower limbs were no trouble, but the upper ones were a different story and I knew from the beginning they would be the challenge.

The first line of attack I tried was to borrow some spikes and a belt to climb the tree. I’ve seen people do this a hundred times and I figured I could do it. Just how wrong can an old fellow be about something that looked so easy? The climbing wasn’t so bad, but after I got to the top I suddenly realized I was 30 feet off the ground and afraid of heights. So I wisely decided to come down which I did in a hurry. The spikes slipped and I slid down the tree digging two parallel groves. I’m still not sure if they were from the spikes or my fingers. I hit the base of tree at about a 100 mph and stuck straight up in the ground with the spikes. After I woke up from fainting I unbuckled them and limped off cleaning bark out from under my fingernails.