Oh.... Chills and Fever

If you are of a certain vintage that will bring a song to mind. If not, never mind, it's an apt description of yours truly as she sits in her four layers of clothes, with the heating pad on her back, a blanket thrown over her legs and (for once) loving the toastiness of the laptop.

I was worried that I might be coming down with the Piggy flu but I am feeling the first prickling of a cold sore on my bottom lip. I never thought I'd be glad to realize I had a cold sore coming on! They always do this to me. As soon as the thing emerges I will feel fine again, but until then I am going to feel miserable.

I'm now trying to think what might have triggered it? Probably the barest pin-prick of a cat's claw. He pats my face at night, to wake me, and if he breaks the skin on my lip it reacts with outrage.

But never mind, more interesting things have been afoot. A few days ago the tree crew showed up to remove the dying mock cherry trees scattered around the park. Earlier Jed and crew cut the tree in front of our place, but it was easy to rope and pull over onto the road as the cut was made. No danger of it crashing into one of the units. The ones left for the arbor crew to remove were the dicey ones.

They came with a large crane and a very impressive chipper. This thing chewed through eight inch thick tree trunks with a guttural growl you could hear for blocks. They began at the lake end and moved this way, and every time they asked the people in the units on either side of the tree to clear out and get well back, so there was a gaggle of sidewalk superintendents and nervous observers.

Most of these trees were like the one between us and the next door neighbour's to the north. It was sandwiched in the pathway between our two trailers, and even an inch movement in the wrong direction would have brought it down on their deck roof.

One fellow would climb the tree and secured straps to three sturdy branches at equidistant points around the crown. Then came the cutting. They couldn't simply cut and lift, as the tree would swing as the trunk was severed. The solution here is to make a tenon cut, so the tree could be lifted up, swung over several roofs and dropped gently onto the grass across the road.

We are now two trees down, and in a much sunnier position. Now, if we could just get some sun, rather than the wind and rain that has pelted us for days.