Everything that happens is political

And I am tired of all of it – the bombing and the bomber wasn’t read his rights; he is Muslim; don’t read anything into his religion – it doesn’t mean anything; he is from the Caucasus region, which means he is Caucasian.

Everything that happens is political … except my yard work.

Sunday afternoon I pulled a 31-foot-long utility pole from the tree line and into the open and I can do something with it and the other pole still to be moved.

In the front of the front yard are three six-inch diameter oak trees, two in line and the third centered and behind the others. I figure to make a diamond-shaped flower bed, about 30 feet wide. The three trees make three-fourths of the points I need.

Ten years ago, pulling the utility pole would have been relatively easy. I have the right equipment – a four-wheel drive pickup, a nylon tow strap, a trailer hitch to tie the strap to and a shovel to dig beneath the poles and run the strap under and tie it off.

What I don’t have is 10 years ago strength and stamina.

Pulling the first pole required digging a while and then stopping for rest. After an hour or so, I went back to the job and tied the strap to the pole and to the pickup trailer hitch and pulled the pole out of the woods. That was enough for Sunday work.

This morning I went to the pole and, with a bolt cutter, snipped off 20 feet of 1-8th inch copper wire. I wanted the wire whole, but somebody had done a good job stapling the wire to the pole. So now I have six pieces of copper wire.

The first pole was pointed in the direction of an open area. The second pole is not. Today, after digging and using a shovel to pry with, I pulled two six-foot cherry logs from near the second pole. Now I need to cut down a four-inch diameter gum tree so I can back straight to the second pole and pull it out. Even when the pole is out of the woods, I will have to some maneuvering to get it where I want it.

I will cut both poles to as-yet-undetermined lengths. To do that, though, I will have to get the poles off the ground, because I do not want my chain saw contacting dirt. I have two floor jacks, so if I can get the poles high enough, I can set the jacks in place.

I’m probably making this whole thing more complicated than it should be, but that is far from unusual.

This thing might take a while.