The Beast

If you have seen any of my status updates the past couple of days you would have seen that I have been locked in a land war with a diabolical foe. In the front of my grandmother's house is a bush that I lovingly (read sarcastic undertones) refer to "The Beast". My grandparents have had this bush for a very long time. As long as I can remember in fact. My grandfather brought a clipping from the Big Island and planted it in front of the house. As a kid I had many fond memories of this bush. My sisters and I would gather up the small purplish-pink four petaled flowers and toss them in the air over our heads. They would spiral down over us in a shower of little helicopters. That's what we would call it, the helicopter bush. Like I said I had many fond memories of that bush.

Not anymore. Not since I became the one to have to control it. I didn't think I would mind so much. I enjoy being outside. The warm sun shining down on me, a cool breeze and blue, blue skies overhead. How bad could it be to trim one bush. But soon I discovered that the bush wasn't going to peacefully submit to being tamed. It grows like a giant rats nest. Branches shoot out 6 feet or higher straight up to the sky and every other direction. It looks for any thing it can latch onto and wrap it self around. The branches twist and turn, entwining and weaving themselves into a tangled mess. And it grows incredibly fast. I swear I just cut it and 2 days later I will see a vines sticking out 6 ft in every direction. As if the isn't bad enough the leaves have this little hairs on them that are annoyingly itchy. And the branches bite. I always end up covered in scratches after I finish.

I actually haven't taken on the Beast in about a year. Last year a friend of mine was helping take care of the yard work for me. I wasn't able to get out and tackle it due to caring for my grandfather.It was nice to not to have to worry about it. It was also nice to because I run into problems with grandma when I do it. I tend to try to keep the yard somewhat under submission and I guess I was cutting too much back for grandma. It's hard when you have someone who is rather indecisive in some things. Going back and forth on what she wants done. And very set and unmoving on other things. It was hard to make her see that some things were better. That it needed to be done. It was also rather frustrating to have my friend tell grandma the exact same thing I was telling her and have her go along with it because he told her it. So after a while I just let things slide until she would ask me to do it. One of those things was the bush out front. I was going to go out and cut it one day when she told me that she would rather I didn't since the bush hadn't bloomed with as many flowers as it used to. Since then I haven't touched it. As it is a rather forceful and encroaching beast it has been steadily taking over the front yard. Then last week grandma came into my room and said "maybe we should cut the bush. It's taking over the yard." We being me of course. I actually don't mind as long as I don't mind as long as I don't have to deal with drama with it.

On Monday I set out into what would be my first foray. Due to the fact that my grandpa was very frugal and wanted to keep things as simple as possible my weapons were a pair of hedge shears, a lopping shears and a pruner. I was three hours into a major engagement with the Beast when I decided to fall back and go get some heavy artillery. I was running into the problem of having lots of small branches intermingled with thicker branches. My poor hedge shears were doing great with the small branches but just couldn't cut it with the bigger branches. And it was taking way too long cutting them one at a time. So out I went to get a big bad electric hedge trimmer.

Maybe it's because I'm so much like my dad but I love tools. Especially big, bad, monster tools. Give me a pneumatic framing nail gun. A 19.2 volt cordless drill/driver. A table saw. Oh baby! Love them. So needless to say I wasn't a hard sell when it came to getting another toy...uh I mean very important tool. Tuesday came all bright and sunshiny and I was ready to battle again. Unfortunately the skirmish again went to my enemy. The hedge trimmer worked like a dream. It cut through the resistance like a hot knife through butter but I was left to clean up the casualties and there was much more of them then I could manage. I stuffed as much as I could into the green waste bin but that filled up way too quickly. Next I tried to stuff them in to garbage bags but they shredded the bags. I then got a tarp and wrapped up a massive load and drug it to the compost pile in the lower yard. But even after all that I still had a yard full of debris. I filled a large trash can and finally had to call it quits. I was way to hot and starting to not feel too good. I had been out for 3 hrs in direct sun and 90º temps. Even with my "killer hat" as my neighbor called it I was done in and had to beat a strategic retreat.

Day three came and I decided to follow the advice of a very wise woman to wait until later in the day for a sneak attack. Well, actually she said to wait until night fall but I decided to wait until after 4 to lull the Beast into a false sense of security. Some of the reason I decided on this strategy was because I had to take grandma to a Doctor appointment and some of it was because it was another scorcher today. After the Doctor appointment I stopped at the store to pick up some different trash bags. What followed was another hard and long clash but I was able to finish most of clean up. Eight bags later, I had to again retreat when it got too dark. For now the Beast is tamed. My foe is vanquished, but only for a time. Soon I know the time will come again when I will have go out again and battle.