After the Storm

April 10, 2025

On Monday (April 7), at Blackberry Homestead the land was still very wet. We decided to go to Costco and shop. Our Costco list had gotten long. On the way to Costco in Madison, AL along alternate Hwy 72, we enjoyed the beautiful yellow fields of mustard blooming.

Once we got back from Costco, we started putting away the groceries. I was using the vacuum pack to vacuum pack meat to go into the freezer, when the power went out!

I pulled out the ziplock bags and used them for packing the meat. We quickly put the meat away into the freezer.

We noticed the power company trucks down by the bridge, just to the south of us. We had noticed a power pole leaning over. The power company was replacing the pole and restoring power to our neighbor.

The power was out for a little over an hour.

We decided to do some yard work. In the front yard, I picked up sticks downed from the storm while Bruce mowed the front yard. He left the area that still had water to mow another day.

The sunset was beautiful. I tried to capture the sunset colors with the neighbor’s dogwood.

Tuesday (April 8), was a very busy day.

I had an appointment at 8:45 AM in Florence to start the ball rolling for a colonoscopy. The doctor’s office is waiting on my records from Colorado to schedule the colonoscopy.

We went hone for a bit to see Nox. We headed back to Florence to see the noon showing of a play, Dragons and Mythical Beasts, at the Norton Theatre at the University of North Alabama.

It was a wonderful play! Many of the characters were very large puppets, requiring several puppeteers. It was very interactive with the audience, with the main character bringing children up onto stage to interact with the puppets. I had as much fun watching the children in the audience interact with main character as I did watching the play.

After the play, we walked to Trowbridge’s and got ice cream. I got a hot caramel sundae with black walnut and Bruce got the Brownie Cup. Such good ice cream!

We walked back to the truck, stopping on the way at Wilson Park. The cherry trees were blooming.

The Kennedy – Douglass Center for the Arts is across the street from Wilson Park. We decided to explore a bit.

I didn’t take any pictures from the inside displays. The exhibits were from middle schools and high schools in the area. It was a judged display.

I did take pictures of the artworks outside.

Once back at the truck, we decided to visit Florence Indian Mound and Museum.

We went inside first and I didn’t take many pictures since I got caught up in the displays. I did take pictures of the mound and the views from the mound. I found it easy to climb the 72 steps to the top. All the physical work on Blackberry Homestead is paying off!

I had PT at 3:30 PM. Once PT was done, we went home.

Bruce was thrilled to realize he had time to start cutting up the broken pine tree. With the freeze warning for the night, I brought in the peppers and fig trees. I put on my coveralls, two pairs of rubber gloves and set to work pulling up poison ivy.

Bruce fired up the pole saw and chain saw to break down the broken pine tree.

I am going to share the pictures Bruce took and his words.

From Bruce:

You can see the tool I started with, my Greenworks electric pole saw, basically a 10″ bar chainsaw on a short pole. It’s great for reaching safely where I’d otherwise have to wade through branches.

More branches removed. At this point, I’ve brought out my main chainsaw, with a 20″ bar. This is also a Greenworks electric model. It cuts bigger stuff a lot faster, and is all in all comparable to my old Stihl two-smoke saw, which also had a 20″ bar. It starts a lot easier though, takes less maintenance, is a lot quieter, but doesn’t have that glorious scent that lets you know you’re operating a real saw.

Now I’ve started chunking the main trunk that’s down, as well as removing more branches.

I’d about decided to call it a day, thinking the standing trunk had poison ivy, but Julia said it was the next tree that did. So I looked, and she’s right. I decided to switch to bringing down the main trunk.

With an appropriate back cut, and some persuasion via a line run to the truck, the trunk is down.

How’s that for a hinge? Aside from needing persuasion, as it was heavily leaning the wrong way (would land on the fence, not a huge deal but not ideal), it came down beautifully. Later, I’ll remove this stump. I may go so far as to dig around it, run a chain around it and to the truck, and pull the whole thing out with the roots.

Julia assisted with the last parts of the tree removal. Mostly by watching me and yelling encouragement, and maybe wincing a few times.

That’s the end of Bruce’s section.

Here’s a picture I took looking towards the house.

The next morning, April 9 (Wednesday), the skyline from the back is missing the tree.

Bruce spent the day using the chainsaw to cut up the tree trunk and moving the branches. When he needed a break, he mowed. I spent the day pulling up poison ivy. I even pulled down some vines from trees and pulled up these huge roots from the large vines on the trees.

I used the loppers to chop the vines and roots into small pieces to fit into the trash bag. I closed up the very full trash bag and rolled the trash can down to the end of the driveway for the trash pickup.

Bruce opened the front door for me and I peeled out of my gloves and coveralls. The first layer of gloves was placed on the patio step. The second layer of gloves was thrown away after I unzipped my coveralls, wiggled out of them and carried them to the washing machine.

I then hopped into the shower and washed down with Tecnu.

I added detergent, Tecnu and OxiClean to the washing machine to remove any poison ivy oils.

We didn’t do much for the rest of the day. We were both sore from all the work we did.