matching tracksuits

It's almost worth of FailBlog: I cut down a tree in the backyard. Those two clauses would be enough to make many worry. "Did it fall on your house?" "Did it damage your neighbor's property?" I miscalculated, but nothing so awful.

The tree -- diseased and dying -- was a mite, just a tiny bit too tall. A few inches. Of what significance would a few inches be in our almost infinite galaxy? For the want of a nail and all that...

When the tree fell (after much tugging and physical cajoling, for I didn't want it to fall on our neighbor's fence), the top portion caught a branch of a neighboring tree.

And there it remained.

Today, I took care of the problem, but not without some trepidation. As it stood -- or rather, half-stood -- I didn't know which way it would finally fall. Cutting from the bottom seemed most logical: eventually, gravity would serve to create a fulcrum out of the weakened part of the tree, pulling it in on itself.

It worked. But not after I literally cut through the entire tree, a nerve-wrenching experience. I could see the tree lurching this way or that, cracking me in the thigh, breaking a leg, an arm, a whole bag of bones. I cut through to the mid-point, then made paranoid careful cuts: squeeze the chainsaw's trigger, a little cutting, then a retreat.

In the end, I won: no broken bones, and the wood is now is now curing. And I'm finally coming down from my chainsaw-testosterone high.

We still have pictures a hang, a television to buy, and a few final touches, but the living room, by and large, is done.

Another Saturday completed: we repainted the living room in preparation for a complete redecoration.

First and second coats and we're pretty much done. I admit I'll miss the yellow.

K felt it was too bright; I loved the way it made the room open.

Between coats, I mowed and raked some leaves. It was not warm enough to break a sweat, and so it almost didn't even feel like work. But by most definitions, it was.

In another life, twenty-five to thirty years ago, my Saturdays were supposed to be days of reverence and quiet rest. Saturday is, of course, the seventh day; Jews and a few groups of Christians believe it is the sabbath, a time of rest. There's something appealing about that to me, even today.

Still, in the intervening years, my associations with and expectations of a good Saturday have literally turned 180 degrees. Just as I couldn't imagine mowing then, I can't imagine not spending Saturdays working now.

It makes me wonder what else might flip-flop in my life, and what else has changed without me yet truly noticing.

Four Saturdays of work. A couple of pros would have the backs and arms to get it all done in one day. We took somewhat longer.

Part of it was inexperience. Having never dug up and recreated a planter, we had no idea how long it would take; we certainly didn't know how much effort it would require.

Although the vision was very amorphous, we somehow knew what it would look like, though.

Now, instead of five boxwoods we have:

• two Loropetalum chinense,
• two Gardenia brighamii,
• three Rhaphiolepis indica,
• three Rhynchospermum jasminoides,
• a line of alternating Tradescantia pallida and Senecio cineraria,
• a small patch of Viola tricolor hortensis.

Who am I kidding? I can barely remember the plants' common names, let alone the Latin.

Though not in in Blackburn, Lancashire. Rather, they're in our yard, now.

Weeding, aeration, leveling, seeding, fertilizing -- it's been a long day.