My property is bounded on two sides by good old farm country hedgerows. These innocuous looking strips of trees and bushes want you to think they will mind their own business, century after century, but that’s a flaming falsehood. Hedgerows are after world domination. Just leave one unattended for two years, and you’ll see the evidence.
So when I fenced the barn-side of my property, I knew enough to leave a wide strip of grass between the fence and the hedgerow. Mowing is the first defense against relentless encroachment. Very wise of me, except that when my old yard guy retired, and the new guy took over, I did not specifically inspect his work on that side of the pasture. He didn’t bother mowing the strip, and the hedgerow soon ate up the grass.
Several years pass, and I point out to yard guy that it’s time to get the hedgerow in hand. Too many dead trees ready to clobber the fence, too many saplings growing up through the fence boards, and yikes, the poison ivy is having a such a good time…
Yard guy quotes me big thousands to a) remove 270 feet of still-functional three-board oak fence and haul it away, b) bring in huge tree-eating equipment and reduce all unwanted specimens to sawdust (while alas, also killing my two baby apple trees), and c) rebuilding the fence with new materials.
I am furious. His neglect of a job competently done is why the hedgerow has become a menace, though granted, I did not inspect what I expected, because any damned fool knows… I thank him for the quote, tell him it’s out of my range, have a nice day. See you in the spring.
I fumed, I walked up and down that fence line. I said bad words aloud. Went into the hardware store, asked the nice man for the sissy-est electric power saw in the store. The puniest, littlest, most ridiculous excuse for a power saw, and he set me up with a pee-wee glorified hedge trimmer.
Here’s the thing: I am afraid of power tools. They are loud, sharp, and dangerous, and where I live, I could bleed out before anybody besides the turkey buzzards noticed a body by the road (writer’s imagination strikes again). But I was not going to pay that guy thousands of books worth of revenue to vastly over-do what amounted to a day’s clean up job.
I read the power saw manual (with a magnifying glass), fired up the saw, and got to work. Within about twenty minutes, I was thinking maybe I could manage a larger saw. I have repulsed the invading saplings, cut the poison ivy off at that roots, freed the fence of dropped branches, and generally given the hedgerow’s nefarious aspirations a middle finger. And when a tree dropped on the fence this week, I called the guy who tills my garden, and he knew a guy who knew a guy, and the mess was cleaned up for a modest price the next afternoon.
The punchline to this story was that when I got angry enough, when I felt sufficiently disrespected, I took a small step outside my comfort zone, and got a boost in self-respect (and arm muscles) to show for it. I problem-solved in addition to seething, and that felt and feels good.
The hedgerow still has plenty of dead trees to drop on the fence, and I am still scared of power tools, but if I’ve made my point to one over-quoting yard guy, then I am content.
When did you get mad enough to walk away? Mad enough to take scary steps? Mad enough to say the scary words?
I took on the provincial assessment authority after our house was assessed at triple our neighbors’. The comparables that year were across town. I had this house built… talking about fools rushing in where angels dare not and know exactly what we do and don’t have. I learned a lot, some of it about spiteful people, which sounds a bit like what you ran into, Grace.
And is your fear of power tools fear, or a healthy respect for something that can do great damage in unskilled, untutored hands?
I’m siding with Marianne- a healthy respect for power tools is something I wish many patients had exhibited!
But I, too, have done many things that were a stretch for me, because someone said I couldn’t, so darn it I had to show that “yes, I can!”
I don’t think I’ve ever actually done anything like that. Either I don’t get mad (enough) or not at situations that I can do something about myself. I’ve taken some steps I thought were scary but I don’t recall that anger was the motivation. I think I feel lucky about that.
I am on my phone and do not have the energy to explain the whole saga of how I, a conflict-averse scaredy-cat have grown through hundreds of little moments where I either stood up and did the right thing and faced the music or stayed quiet and lived with the fallout inside my soul and regretted it. These days, I am worried sick, grieving, and frightened. I am speaking up, though, and that is not nothing.
I needed to hear about your hedges today. Thank you. <3
Banded together with a squad of neighbors and repulsed a big name developer who thought presenting us with a clear cut timber fait accompli that was a noise barrier between our development & a county road close to 200% overbuilt per the county’s own studies would be easy. Amazing how fast we were able to metaphorically circle the wagons & fire up the documentary equivalents to a mob of peasants with torches & pitchforks. Sheer fury at the destruction of some of the last remaining woods where critters still found refuge had us forging our words into weapons.
I have a husband and a son who are unfortunately infected with know-it-all-itis. Occasionally – like today – I have to put them in their place. Not that they will stay there very long.
Well done Grace!!!
Telling me I can’t do something is still a motivator as is frustration / anger. I’m not certain my success rate is anything to boast about, but it is greater than zero. When I do get it done myself, the satisfaction is immense.
But still respect the malice of inanimate objects
Congrats! Yay for Women of Power (and Power Tools!)…
Dear Grace,
I’m proud of you for taking the job in hand! I’m more interested in the common ground of trying to keep a rural property maintained. I’m now 77 and I live on 164 acres of a 1789 farm in New Hampshire. When I was photographed as baby on a neighbour’s property this area was fields as far as the eye could see. Fourteen years later, this property which was abandoned had become completely forested. Now the land is designated as under forestry management which provides income and tax breaks.
Since I inherited the old farm in 2009, I’ve been trying to clear the large southeast facing fields here which were the best growing areas. I was visiting in California last winter and was horrified by the fires. Canada also had huge forest fires. I’m now trying my hardest to get the fields cleared for my safety and pleasure. I figure at my age, I have only a few more years to work this hard. I have a large John Deere mower and I need to get the fields so they can be mowed at least once a year. I have the remnants of a small herd of moose living on my land. During a blizzard in February, 2 yearling moose spent the afternoon playing and munching my garden out in the back yard. Yes we old women can keep these old farms going!
My watercolor class and I felt empowered by a lovely, quiet student who casually mentioned she had a small chain saw. Well, that set off weeks of discussion and encouragement.Each week another student had bought a new power tool. We joyously exclaimed our purchases and subsequent garden taming.
I bought an electric hedge trimmer, baby Sawzall, and branch cutter. Woo hoooooo.
I haven’t graduated to a baby chain saw, but I’m proud, empowered and flipping my nose at all the men in my life that wouldn’t let me use the powere tools.
The power of wemon is great.
The power of self is fabulous:)
Also a small ELECTRIC chainsaw that weighs about 10 pounds would be very useful. We have one and it’s amazing. I get angry a lot unfortunately, but I don’t know how to channel it into productive action. For tangible things like hedge trimming, yes indeed I could figure that out — and good for you! I can just imagine you out there all righteous with your tools! But for other things, like how I am so angry and frustrated about our political issues but I don’t know what to DO(!) that kind of frustrated impotent rage is not healthy for my soul, but I can’t simply ignore things either. I have joined various groups and am doing the small useful things but I wish I could do more.
I am afraid of two things in my home, anything electrical and the gas fireplace starter. One Saturday morning while my husband was at work and a good winter storm was brewing, I sat on my couch staring at my fireplace wishing it would magically flame to life. Picture Winnie-the-Pooh sitting, tapping his head, “think think thinking”. I decided I could do it. I rolled a sheet of newspaper up tight, laid it on the grate over the gas starter line, and lit it. Then I moved out from the blast zone and slowly lit the gas. It worked! I can now have a blazing fire without any assistance. I wasn’t mad at anyone but myself, but it was a really rewarding experience to have conquered that fear. I will never attempt anything electrical.
It may seem to have nothing in common and yet, by those mysteries of the imagination, what is constantly coming to my mind is the work of purging from my life personal relationships that, being theoretically friends or family, to name two fields, in reality were not really being good for me but were poisonous. From comments from behind my back to comments from the front wrapped in a patina of irony, i.e., malevolent in reality and son on… These are indeed “destructive bushes” (to generalize) invading one’s property (life).
And here, yes, the point of personal courage, of daring to step into the unknown, is more recognizable because it takes a huge dose of personal courage to face what I believe is the greatest fear of people: the fear of loneliness. And yet regaining personal space is not loneliness, it is an enormous achievement. And letting go of poisonous relationships is not loneliness, it is recovering a healthy dose of self-love. And furthermore, the state achieved is not loneliness: it is being with oneself, which is the greatest reward.
“To my solitudes I go, from my solitudes I come, because my thoughts are enough to walk with me”. Lope de Vega, Spanish poet.
I love the line where your anger pushed you from your comfort zone! I wanted to cheer! I also spent a good many years afraid of saws(but desperately wanting to build things I couldn’t otherwise afford)but slowly worked my way up from a tile saw to all the big saws. What I discovered was the noise bothered me more than anything else, I got some nice ear protection and felt so much less anxious and more confident. After that, it was just a matter of time. Can’t wait to hear what this adventure empowers you to do next!
First, I will say “SAFETY FIRST” when working with power tools, especially as a new user. I like the electric chainsaw called the alligator — it’s like a chainsaw with safety blades .. somehow I feel like it’s safer, but it’s pretty limited for the diameter of the material. Still great for the small stuff.
I get mad a lot (especially lately), and generally write long letters in my brain at night when I should be sleeping. Sometimes I write them in reality, but generally it’s just a lot of wasted time.
Right now, mud season is pushing me outside my comfort zone. Our house site did not have a construction drive installed due to timing constraints, so it’s a bog getting through to the house, but there is stuff there that needs to get done to not slow down forward progress. I can be mad at the contractor, but instead I’m slip-sliding and fish-tailing through the mud while being a bit white-knuckled about it.