Lawn mowed, weed whacking, tree trimming, rain

I finished mowing the yard a few days ago.  My first and only lawn mowing of the year.  Otherwise the cattle had eaten the grass down.

Before and after.

I also mowed the ditch on each side of the driveway and around my mailbox on the other side of the road.  I would like to mow the grass in the fruit tree area.  I only had time to make one pass around that area.

Yesterday, to "pay" back my neighbor Curtis for fixing a few of my irrigation sprinklers, I used his weed whacker to trim the grass and weeds in parts of his yard.  He has stuff sitting around some edges of his property and a lawn mower can't be used.  I got two thirds of the area whacked.  I ran out of the weed whacker twine.  Curtis put more twine in the whacker.  We had to figure it out as he never had to replace the twine in this whacker before.  Then the new twine was positioned wrong and we had to make an adjustment.   Then when one wants more twine come out of the whacker one bumps the button/knob of the whacker on the ground as the whacker is turning.  Other times it worked.  This time the bottom of the whacker fell off.  The problem is there is a spring inside and that also came out.  And of the two small metal holes the twine comes out of, one is missing.  I used Curtis's metal magnet to look for the spring.  However, this being me lately, things go missing and can't be found.  I searched and searched the area.  I guess that since this came apart as the whacker was turning, who knows how far the spring was tossed.  That ended my whacking until Curtis can fix his whacker.

Also yesterday I trimmed a few more branches off the box elder tree I had recently trimmed.  I keep looking up at the trees.  I noticed a branch that dying at the end. I could fully extend a ladder against a lower branch and then climb up to saw off the dying branch.  Then I saw another branch that did not look like it was dying, but did not look robust.  I decided to cut the branch now instead of next year.  To reach this branch I had to put the ladder in the pickup bed and bungie cord it to hold it secure.  Then I could climb up with my chainsaw to cut this branch.

Before and after.

The chain sawed branch.

A neighbor/business down the road has a telescopic forklift.  He was outside a few days ago and I stopped and asked him about using his lift for me to reach the upper parts of my tree. 

A photo of a similar looking machine.

He wasn't interested in doing so.  Partly due to insurance reasons and partly because he only has the forks to stand on, and no box or bucket that would be safer to stand on when up so high off the ground.  I understand.  But, dang, I would like to trim my tree's upper branches.

Today was a day to sleep longer.  It started to rain overnight and rained all day today.  We needed the rain.  We got over seven tenths of an inch of rain and that is more than we got the past few months in total.  Rain should be gone tomorrow.  Rascal was happy today as I slept in bed longer and then he had my lap to lay on most of the day, and is laying there now as I write this.