Hi Gang
For a couple of years now I've been pondering trimming two thirty foot high
Conifer trees in my back garden. I've watched them grow all through summer
and dreaded the thought of the 'autumn trim.' Every time we had a barbecue
this summer I've studied them, both drunk and sober, from every angle, as
they bent and waved in the summer breeze and seemed to whisper 'you can't
do it can you' - as if they know my fear of working on a high ladder.
I made a start yesterday by cutting about six foot off the base diameters
to a height of about seven feet with my electric hedge cutter. How do you
like that? I muttered to the trees - as I sat on the patio for my first
coffee break. The trees, obviously embarrassed with their trousers off,
seemed to say 'What about the top'. My plans had dealt with the challenge.
I'd welded up a U section tube to a square bracket which I bolted to the
top of the ladder so that when I mounted it in the trees two foot long
prongs buried themselves in the branches to stop the ladder slipping
sideways. All afternoon I trimmed and cut away branches until I'd got
perfect tapered symmetry and the trees had been reduced in height by about
ten feet. A perfect job I said to my self, as I noticed the giant shadows
cast across the lawn were no more.
The mountain of branches at the bottom of my garden were also planned for
our 'Bonfire Night' sausage and mash party on November 5th ( We English
celebrate a failed attempt to burn down the Houses of Parliament a few
centuries ago).
As I took to my chair, exhausted, I sat watching the BBC evening news on
Tele with my springer spaniel on my knee.The successful tree trimming was
due to months of careful planning and making sure exactly where to place
the ladder safely between branches for every move at every descending three
foot level. Not once did the ladder slip, and due to perfect discipline on
my part not once did I lose balance at height whilst wealding the electric
trimmer, and my three foot long heavy duty cutters - every move was
pre-planned.-
My faith in planning was suddenly shattered when, on the news, I heard that
we had launched a satellite to investigate Mars. The satellite, after
travelling months through space, suddenly vanished. It turned out that the
'planners' were sending navigational instructions to the satellite in
yards, feet and inches. They had unfortunately programmed the 75 million
pound satellite navigational system in a metric system (meters and
centimeters) which it could not understand and therefore crashed on Mars
-planning.
Paul
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