outdoor work and outdoor kitties

I spent a little over an hour and a half outside yesterday. First I emptied the truck onto the burn pile and then swept out all the small twigs and leaves so that Marc can go get it inspected and I can take all the accumulated metal down to the metal recyclers. Then I got out my little baby chainsaw and started on the other pecan tree with the hanging limb cutting away the now very dead canopy. There’s not much of the limb still attached, just a thin strip of bark. 

The only thing holding it up are the weight bearing branches dug into the ground. While it was overcast and only (!) 90˚ when I came in at 12:30, it was humid and my ball cap was soaked, my hair was soaked, my shirt was soaked, my underwear was soaked and there might have been some areas on my shorts that were still dry. Did I mention I was sweating profusely? 

I splashed cold water on my face and then stripped down naked and stood under the ceiling fan on high with arms and legs akimbo like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man until I was dry enough to put on a lightweight dress that is so loose it only touches me on the shoulders, got a glass of ice water and sat under the aforementioned fan until I cooled off enough to take a shower.

I repeated it all again today sans emptying the truck but I only lasted a little over an hour. I’ve made a big dent the last two days in clearing out the small branches on the pecan tree by the back of the barn making three big piles since instead of four limbs I’m only dealing with two. And got bit on the neck by a tree ant for my trouble.

Here’s a before picture though it’s a different angle.

It’s been awhile since I posted pictures of the outdoor boys that live under Pam’s house. These are the kittens that were born last July under my sister’s shed, making them a little over a year old now. Pam started feeding Momcat and trapped her and got her fixed which left the three kittens that she was feeding with the intent of getting help from the local rescue group to have them fixed and adopted out when she died last November. I didn’t want the kittens wandering off before I could get them fixed so I continued feeding the little feral beasts. I eventually got them to trust me enough to be able to pet them and even pick up two of them and got all three fixed though the third had to be trapped and he is still wary. So here they are…sweet Handsome Boy, a brown tabby with gorgeous green eyes,

affectionate Lovey with his yellow eyes, who purrs readily,

and standoffish Twin who will sometimes let me pet him but not for very long.

I didn’t get a picture of Momcat but she’s still around though she doesn’t show up every night while the boys are always here. She’s very friendly and loves to be pet but can be kind of a bitch, hissing at the boys if they get too close. We think she was dumped when she got pregnant because we hadn’t seen her around until we saw her moving the kittens one day.