There always seems to be something to do around here, especially with spring just around the corner.  On Thursday we got our first real dose of wind, with 40-50 MPH gusts.  On the side of the house there was a large Bradford Pear tree, which unfortunately was planted directly under the electric lines that feed my house from the transformer.  On several of those gusts I would lose power for a second.  Just long enough to completely hose the one PC that I haven’t yet connected to a UPS. 

I called a tree service and waited around for them to come out and give me an estimate.  Around 7:00pm they called and said it’d be the next morning.  Well, they finally showed up around 2:00pm on Friday.  Despite my misgivings about their punctuality, I went ahead and told them to take down the tree.  They came on Saturday and cut down the tree and ground the stump down.  They did a good job, despite being late to every appointment.  The owner of the service also offered to take the old swing set when I told him I was going to tear it down.  In return he trimmed up a couple of other trees in the back yard.  Unfortunately, when it came time to tear it apart, they discovered that the posts were buried a couple of feet deep and encased in concrete.  So now I guess I’m going to have to attack it with a chainsaw and a shovel.

I spent most of Sunday raking and bagging the junk that had accumulated in the back yard.  The previous owners quit bothering to do anything back there sometime last summer, and I hadn’t had time to mess with it until now.  I finished the last bag (number 17) just as it was getting too dark to see what I was doing.  I just hope that the trash collectors don’t balk at the number of bags.  I checked their collection policies on the city’s website, but I always expect trouble. 

I’ve still got a lot of work ahead.  The area where that tree used to be got so much shade that there is no grass there.  There’s also a lot of other junk that I want to get rid of (some planters, an old dog house, etc).  And then, there’s the fence.  Not only do I need to replace the gate, but the entire fence on the left side of the house needs to be replaced (although on the plus side my neighbor offered to pay for half the cost of the materials—I’ll be doing the work myself).  So it looks like I’ve got plenty of work to keep me busy during the next month. 

Anyhow, all this domestic activity kind of cut into my blogging activity.