Friends arrived.  T&J.  We’ve been friends for almost 40 years.  It is great to see them.  They had a hard-ish slog covering the 130 miles from Vancouver to Read by sailboat – against the wind.  But, as any sailboater knows: the wind is ‘on your nose’ 90% of the time.  Doesn’t matter which way you are going either.  It’s like a maritime version of Murphy’s law.  It’s why they invented power boats.

Trev is quite a guy.  Like many of my friends who are ‘quite-a-guys’, he wants to help me do something.  Do some work.  Get a little dirty, cut yourself on something sharp and get a chore done.  Aaargh, aargh, argh!  I love those guys.  I am not one of them but I love them.  I much prefer to write about them, supervise them or fetch them a beer.  The hurting-myself, cutting myself, getting dirty and sweaty got old for me a long time ago.  Back when I was 16, actually.  Haven’t been keen on that kind of fun since then.   I like the beer part.  But, after that, some of us guys have different interests.

Of course, living out here means I have no choice, really.  I have to do that stuff (well, the stuff I can’t palm off on Sal, anyway).  So I have my share of scars and I have to clean the dirt from under my nails all the time.  I get sweaty.  I am a cream-puff but the chores still have to get done.   It helps when friends come all keen and all. 

“So, what can we do?  We love to get things done.  What chores would you be doing if we weren’t here and let’s get at ém!” I am thinking that I really should exploit this kind of lunacy while I have the chance but it is hard to take advantage of people you love.

I hesitate for only a minute.

“Well, there’s that old snag that is threatening to fall on my highline and I’d like to get that down.  But it’s dangerous.  All twisted and hollow.  This is the ‘tree of death’ and I am not keen”.  “Wahoo!  Let’s get on ér!”

It is nice to have ‘quite-a-guy’ support.  So, I get out the ropes (I am gonna lash this puppy to another tree so that it doesn’t kill me half way through).  “Nah”, says Trev.  “Just a cut here and one there and we’ll jump out of the way.  No problem.”  Sheesh.  I forgot about the macho part.  Working alone, I can be frightened on my own time but working with ‘quite-a-guy’ means ‘getting at ‘er’ and doing so NOW! 

So we forgo the safety lashings and I am cutting into the ‘widow-maker’ with Trev off to one side encouraging me.  “Looking good.  It’s gonna work.  I am sure.”  At one point I am stretched over the gully divide and using my chainsaw on this pillar of treachery with one hand (holding myself from falling in the gully with the other) and thinking, “how did I get myself into this?”

“You’re doing great.  Just be a bit careful now……………….. ”  “Fine time to get all safety conscious on me, Trev!”  “Let’s tie a rope on her now and ‘give ér.  We should be able to pull it now!”  So, I stop and we lasso the puppy.  And pull.  The tree breaks off and topples…………kinda.  It’s hung up in the other trees.  So I am about to deal with that when Sal shrieks and beckons forcefully. 

“Look!” she says with her hands clutched together up by her collar bone in a similar pose to the one struck by Judy.  They are both staring down.  I look on the deck and there is a mouse in the final throes of death-by-poisoning.  They are transfixed.  “Cute little guy” says Judy.  “Do something!” says Sally.  I pick up the splitting mawl (it is handy) and drive it deeply…………..into the earth just away from the deck making a spontaneous mouse grave.  With a ‘flick of the wrist’ the mouse is in the hole.  The girls shriek.  I split the mouse in two with the mawl saving it from being buried alive and any more suffering.  Then I leave them.  They are shocked. 

It is a brutal world.  Karma is king.  And I am about to wrestle the hung tree from the skies and see how this karma thing is working for me today.  I kinda wish the mouse had waited until later. 

We push and pull and the tree comes down perfectly.  Trev is ecstatic.  So am I.  But I am now kinda wondering about the ‘quite a guy’ credentials.  I got a lot of support.  Verbally.  I won’t be so easily ‘charmed’ the next time.  So, we head of to the next chore – steel cutting.  Lots of sparks.  Lots of hot metal bits flying around.  To cut through this, you have to be quite a guy.  I hand the cutter to Trev and leave.

Half an hour later, he is done.  Happy.  “What else you got?” He’s quite a guy.  I get us some tea.  We didn’t work long enough for a beer.