A SUNNY Day!

Wow! Sunshine and fifty degrees F. in January! You can bet I took advantage of it. When I raked the snow off the roof, I had to rake around the taller-than-the-roof-edge yew bush on the south side of the house. I meant to prune it in the fall, but didn't get around to it, and then it got cold and snowed early in November. And even I am not going to drag the ladder around and prune in the snow.

But today was gorgeous. I went out with a coat on, but got too hot, and ended up pruning in a short-sleeved t-shirt. Sunshine on my arms in January!

I use a ratchet loppers to do this fun job, specifically, my expensive-but-worth-it Florian Maxi Lopper. My husband bought these for me about fifteen years ago, back when they were "only" about $120 or $140. Now they are $168.95! Well, I still say they are worth it. There is no way I can handle a chainsaw. I'm not physically big enough. I don't have the upper body strength. Plus, like lawnmowers, chainsaws stink and are noisy. But I can cut anything, anything, I can get into the lopper jaws.

After using mine for a while, my brother and I went in together and bought my dad one of these. I cut the biggest, thickest branch I could find and gave a slice of it to him along with the loppers. My dad looked at the piece and said quietly, "Don't ever stick your wrist in there." Yeek! Don't worry, Dad, I never will. And I store them out of kid-reach!

In 1998 Michigan experienced a "Derecho event". The winds took out trees up and down the state. They were so intense that many people still insist that it had to be a tornado. In any case, my parents lost many of the trees on their property. My dad uses a chainsaw, but he also used his loppers until he wore a lot of the black finish off of them!

Do I get anything for recommending them? Nope. But they are one of those products I could sell on the street corner, me who hated door-to-door candy sales when I was in school.