The Mother comes tumbling down!

Well I have a story to tell today!!  My neighbor and I have been concerned ever since the landlord had tall trees removed along our driveway up to our apartments.  The old tree stumps are sending up new shoots and poison ivy, wild raspberry briars and undergrowth are taking over now that there is lots of sunlight to this area.  The bird feeders are on that side of the drive and we are not keen to have varmints and snakes that near to them or us.  That is what you get when you have a thicket.  Sooo we were talking a few days ago and we each had the same idea of bit by bit cutting away the new growth on the stumps and clearing back the viney stuff at least from the top of the hill to keep it looking tidy.  If this can be accomplished before everything greens totally up and starts growing like wildfire, we would be happy.  That way the Landlord won't come through and use weed killer on stuff that might hurt the birds as well.

This is the area we are concerned about.  We have done a lot of clearing out here already.

This is the kind of stuff we want to cut back.

We both have worked at this for a couple of days with pleasing results.  However, today I decided to go out just long enough to work on one stump.  I was out there all of five minutes and caught my foot in a vine and tumbled rag doll style head over heels down the hill part way.  Just one revolution...that's all.   Uhhhhhh!  While in revolution I was thinking, please Lord don't let me break anything.  Well I didn't break anything but I pulled a chest muscle under/behind my right breast and I could feel that right away.  I am sure it is not a rib and it feels more like muscle than cartilage if I have that feeling sorted out....How WOULD I KNOW!....Uhhhhh! Looking around.....did anyone see that???!!  I didn't notice anyone staring at me or anyone around at all.. :-) Pwhew!

I ended up down about the center of the pic where that limb is. This is about a 45-60 Degree slope.

I had previously set my timer for 15 minutes so that I wouldn't work too long.  I went ahead and clipped a few starts on the next stump and decided I had better go in and tell hubby.  He had no clue.  I was a bit shaky.  I scratched my forehead, chin, neck, thigh and right ankle.  I didn't even notice that before coming inside.

He reminded me this is the 3rd accident in three years and perhaps I should stop doing such physical things at my age (69).  Then he told me to go take a shower because I was covered in dirt, twigs, and dried grass.  Now I have ice on my pulled muscle.  Maybe he is right, but I like to work outside!!  :-(

I need my Indiana friend R. Parker to come and take care of this work for me :-) She is an outdoorsy, get dirty kind of hard working lady.

We will see if I can move at all tomorrow.  I sneezed a little bit ago and I could definitely feel it.