I spent most of Wednesday scraping paint off my window sills and then re-painting them. I also got to take off all the window screens to do this. The fun part, though, was re-caulking and sealing the bathroom window so it doesn't leak. We're talking about doing a temporary fix of putting up a curtain rod and a shower curtain in front of the window to prevent mildew and mold while the window itself is caulked and preventing water from rotting out the wall. Then, come spring time, we'll probably get a new window installed...
anyway, the fresh paint on the window trim and around the windows looks sharp. It was needed.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Pruning Trees 101
After several phone calls to the city and electric company and getting the runaround, I came to the realization that I could either:
A) pay $300+ to have one tree trimmed around the power line or
B) pay $40 for a 12-foot tree pruner with saw, exercise some common sense caution and do the job myself
Our city's forestry department pretty much convinced me that I should do it myself when they said that the city is only concerned with tree limbs interfering with power lines in the right of way and that the line running from the power lines to your house is OK for you to trim yourself.
So... I went with option B. I must've done something right because I'm still standing, uninjured ... but a little sore.
Here is the fruit of my labors :)
For those of you worrying at home about my safety... don't worry, I had a plan. Our setup has three cables running to our house. TV cable, power line, telephone wire. What I figured was trim the limbs by the TV cable and back by the telephone wire and let Sir Isaac Newton do the rest.
For the most part, that worked. By ensuring that what I was cutting wasn't long enough to snap any of the wires, I was able to get small fries to fall on the far side of the power line -- near the TV cable. Once finished with that, I was able to cut the limbs on the inside of the telephone wire, and ensure that the limbs wouldn't fall back and snap the that -- although, it would've been no problem had it snapped since we don't have a land line. Most of the limbs were already safely resting on the line running electricity to our house and when freed, fell to the ground. One got caught and required a few close, careful cuts near the electric line to free it up.
A) pay $300+ to have one tree trimmed around the power line or
B) pay $40 for a 12-foot tree pruner with saw, exercise some common sense caution and do the job myself
Our city's forestry department pretty much convinced me that I should do it myself when they said that the city is only concerned with tree limbs interfering with power lines in the right of way and that the line running from the power lines to your house is OK for you to trim yourself.
So... I went with option B. I must've done something right because I'm still standing, uninjured ... but a little sore.
Here is the fruit of my labors :)
For those of you worrying at home about my safety... don't worry, I had a plan. Our setup has three cables running to our house. TV cable, power line, telephone wire. What I figured was trim the limbs by the TV cable and back by the telephone wire and let Sir Isaac Newton do the rest.
For the most part, that worked. By ensuring that what I was cutting wasn't long enough to snap any of the wires, I was able to get small fries to fall on the far side of the power line -- near the TV cable. Once finished with that, I was able to cut the limbs on the inside of the telephone wire, and ensure that the limbs wouldn't fall back and snap the that -- although, it would've been no problem had it snapped since we don't have a land line. Most of the limbs were already safely resting on the line running electricity to our house and when freed, fell to the ground. One got caught and required a few close, careful cuts near the electric line to free it up.