Misadventures in Tree Planting

Over this weekend we planted two new trees in our back yard. One is an 8ft maple and the other is a 10ft ash. Of course, it’ll be years before we have enough shade to place two lawn chairs under, but you’ve gotta start somewhere. Two small trees in the backyard beats zero.

It was an adventure getting the trees in the ground. Each tree’s rootball weighed about 250lbs by my guess. Thankfully my sister, brother and sister-in-law-to-be were able to drop by to help. Deciding that the wheelbarrow method of transportation was going to be a death sentence, we ended up having to pull the truck and trailer into the back yard, cutting some nice ruts in the yard.

That was the part that went well. Buying the trees was another story… Warning: a long poorly-written story follows. The upside is that you can laugh at me.

On Saturday we hitched up the little 8ft utility trailer and headed out to run a few errands and shop for trees. After a couple of stops it was time for lunch, so we dropped by Jimmy John’s. This parking lot was not conducive to parking a trailer, so I backed the trailer into the corner, unhitched, and parked the truck next to it. Parking spaces occupied: one. Since this trailer is very light, it’s also very easy to run off with, so I got out the short length of chain I keep in my toolbox and ran it betwen the trailer and the leaf spring on my truck. As I fastened the lock, I said outloud, “Boy, I hope I have the –click– key…” It was too late- I’d already issued the orders to my hands to lock. When I traded trucks a couple of months ago, I took everything out, and I hadn’t gotten around to putting all the essentials back into the new truck, including of course the small keyring holding the trailer keys. Fantastic. Now I have the trailer locked to the SIDE of the truck, leaving the truck undrivable. Good plan.

We go inside to get a bite to eat while I ponder my options. I give my sister a call, and she happens to be near by. She comes and takes us back to the house to get the keys to the trailer. On the way back, we stop for ice cream as a “let’s make today go better than it has been so far” treat. Problem solved, and we’re on our way again.

We finally end up at a local nursery where the trees are on sale, so we make our selection. I was talking with the sales person when my wife noticed the employees beginning to load the trees. I hustle over to help/supervise, and the guy tells me he had a problem with the trailer. Apparently, when he stepped on the back of the trailer, the coupler came off the ball! Even though the coupler latches on its own, I normally put a lock on it as well for extra safety. Today I didn’t (refer to the above story about my luck with locks on that day…) I theorize it jostled loose on the drive without that lock. Thankfully no one got hurt and thanks to the safety chains no major damage was done, not to mention being fortunate that it didn’t come uncoupled while driving. It did pull apart my trailer wiring, but I had just installed a disconnect on the trailer itself a few months ago so it came apart there. Somewhere during the day, I later noticed, my tailgate handle got temporarily misaligned. Either myself or one of my helpers leaned against it, or that tongue made a one in a million shot hitting the only part of the back of the truck that could take a punch without damage. I’ve hauled lots of stuff in my trucks, and thanks to my Line-X bedliner and being careful I’ve never had even a scratch, though that little episode cut things a little close…

So, they load the trees on the BACK of the trailer, and in case you’re not aware, a good rule of thumb to have 10-15% of the weight of the loaded trailer on the tongue. Putting 500lbs of trees on the back of a small trailer yields about negative 50% tongue weight, so reloading was required. Next they take my ratchet strap and begin to cinch the trunks of the trees against the back of the trailer (which would result in breaking the branches, scraping the bark, and pulling the rootball around by the trunk of the tree, not to mention that the ratchet strap would come loose on the first bump). I politely inform them that that wasn’t a good idea and suggest that I can take over.

Next we need some compost. Two 40lb bags will run me about $9. You can also buy it in bulk, so I elect to purchase 1/4 yard (about 500-600lbs) for the same price (more is better, right?). Since my new truck only has a 5ft bed, I asked the guy how wide the bucket on the loader was. He replies that “it’ll be fine” which I interpret to mean that it’s either narrow enough or he’s got some plan. He did in fact have a plan, but it was to dump most of the bucket into the truck while letting the remainder fall onto my bumper and hitch. I began to wave him off but he didn’t stop. It was only dirt and… let’s just say “organic material”… not rock, so it wasn’t really going to hurt anything. I’ve had bulk materials loaded in my trucks probably at least a dozen times and have always been impressed by the skill and careful nature of the operators, until this time. I’ve since come up with a device that allows safe loading of a 5ft bed with a 6ft bucket.

In the end, the trees are planted, the yard is fixed, my equipment is unharmed, and my truck had a nice bath (to make up for its manure shower). Thankfully I had a little luck on my side to make up for my (hopefully rare) lapses in judgement.

Oh yeah, on the drive home, I looked at my regular keyring, and what do I see? The spare key to my trailer lock…

He can whistle?

On saturday Evan was sitting on the floor playing with a toy when I heard a weird sound. I thought maybe he had a cold and his nose was whistling. When I saw his face, he had his mouth puckered and was quietly whistling. He only knows one or two notes, but still… I didn’t know little kids could do that. We didn’t try to teach him that, but sometimes I whistle at him because it makes him laugh. He’ll even whistle back if you whistle at him.

I sometimes joke to people that at first babies can’t do much that a pet couldn’t do, and that they slowly make the transition from pet-like housemate to a tiny little human! 🙂 Try teaching a dog to whistle!

Yes, it’s a ceiling fan!

Some of you may know that we’re trying to teach Evan a little bit of sign language. The idea is that he can communicate with us prior to his learning how to actually speak those words. We were starting with the basic ones to help communicate his needs, such as “all done”, “more”, “drink”, etc. Many of those are fairly abstract concepts and he really hasn’t caught on yet.

Evan has always been obsessed with ceiling fans, so we’d point out the ceiling fan, tell him what is was and make the sign (which is moving your arm in a circle in the air pointing with your index finger). A few days ago we had a breakthrough. He just started waving his arm in the air while looking at the fan and giggling. At first he wasn’t doing the sign quite right (not using his index finger) and would sometimes do the sign at the TV or the light over the kitchen table (or even just to get a laugh from us).

Now he’s pretty much got it figured out. He makes the sign properly and when we ask him “Where’s the ceiling fan?” he’ll make the sign and walk back to our bedroom where the fan is located. We’re getting fewer “false positives” as well, since we’re showing him signs for “light” and “tv”. As a side effect, he’s also starting to point at whatever he wants. It’s a lot of fun to see how proud of himself he is when he catches on! Now trips to home improvement stores have gotten way more exciting! He’s got a couple of other signs that he’s starting to learn as well.

On the speaking front, he’s been saying “Mama”, “Dada”, “Kitty”, “I got it”, “Hi” and “Icky” for a while. “Kitty” refers to any animal, baby or radio controlled car. “Icky” he’ll say when we tell him to get away from the garbage can or something similar. “I got it” he says when he grabs something. “Hi” is good for taking strangers at Walmart by surprise. He also converses with our little cat Ginger in her native tongue, but he won’t tell us what they’re saying.

He’s also mastered walking now, can climb the steps (attended of course) and is just about to run. We’d better hit the gym, I guess, to keep up!

Charge on, Charge on Bradley!

Although I’ll admit most years I don’t follow the team, I’m proud to announce my alma mater is in the Sweet Sixteen! Congratulations to my “nourishing mother!” They haven’t made the tournament since I was a freshman, and the last time they made the third round was 1955. They’ve defeated the number 4 seed and number 5 seed, so we’ll soon see how they handle the number 1 seed.

And now, for a reference almost no one will get: “C-14! C-14”

Homeward bound

I’m currently sitting in the airport in Orlando, Florida. For the past week I’ve been traveling around Florida on a business trip. We’ve logged a lot of miles and a worked a lot of hours, but who can complain. Here’s it’s 80+ degrees and sunny. At home it’s been below freezing and there have been tornados.

We had a few longs days, but we’ve also had a little bit of down time. We had a chance to visit the beach at Ft. Lauderdale and in Palm Beach (no, I didn’t see any Girls Going Wild, not at the time anyway). We also followed A1A along the coast and visited the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, a fort completed in 1695 by the Spanish in St. Augustine, the oldest city in the U.S.

All in all it was a fun but tiring trip, and now I’m looking forward to being home. I wish I could remember what section I parked my car in…

#1 on Google!

Alright, I finally got this site to the number 1 spot on Google- well, when you search for “Korey Atterberry”, that is. I had some old sites out there that were getting the top results, so I had to get rid of them. I also had to put in the meta-tag keywords on this site so that the search engines knew what this site was for. This site really should be #1, as I’m the only Korey Atterberry in the world that I’m aware of, and this is my definitive site. Yahoo, on the other hand, still puts this site on about the 4th page…

For what it’s worth, this site is the #2 hit for “atterberry” and the #30 hit for “Korey” (after all the pages about Korey Stringer). I was kind of surprised those were so near the top… It’s also interesting searching for my old jazz combo’s name: “four wild and jazzy guys” (with the quotes) and seeing how many matches there are.

By the way, welcome to my new email subscribers. Sorry for the mistaken notification the other day, and I hope I don’t bore you too much!

Live-action Simpsons intro

In case you haven’t seen it, there’s a live-action version of the Simpsons opening credits floating around, and as a big Simpsons fan I had to share!

Simpsons Opening Credits

They made it pretty true to the original – the only things I noticed different at first glance (without having the cartoon version handy) were driving on the left side of the road (it was shot in Britain) and Lisa not playing a baritone sax. Oh yeah, they’re not yellow and have five fingers too…

Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny

Ok, I don’t want to mark this blog a Fark-clone, but this animation/song amused me and since I’ve been telling people about it I figured I’d post the link. Warning, this video contains some animated violence and some mild explicit language, but then again, what on the internet doesn’t?

Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny

The music is by a funny and reasonably-talented kid who has released a couple of CD’s under the the band name of Lemon Demon. I’m sure his music isn’t for everyone, but if you like They Might Be Giants, he might be right up your alley.

While I’m plugging quirky musicians, I should put in a plug for a buddy of mine who creates similar music, Robbie. Both of these guys make me laugh!