Pretty dramatic title, isn't it?  In case you missed my earlier posts about pneumonia and how hard I have been working to breathe, or caught them and desire an update, this one is about my Will to Live.  A strong will to live has been ascribed to me by various medical personnel, my mother, and a few others who have gotten to know me in this lifetime.

That makes me wonder whether one's Will to Live is an unconscious thing, or whether those people who accused me of having one were just full of shit.  Some of those times that my supposedly strong will to live has come up in conversation have been immediately following unsuccessful suicide attempts.  "Unsuccessful," of course... what a silly thing to say!  I guess what I mean to say is that I have consciously and sincerely tried to die, and failed.

I have seen how very fragile life can be, how easily extinguished by accident, a blow struck in anger, tiny microorganisms... more ways than I can imagine.   Then there was the time that a medical misadventure rendered me devoid of vital signs, but in that case there was an old Master Sergeant corpsman nearby, ready to step in and correct the mistake made by a young officer with a medical degree.  Even Mama would have a hard time ascribing that one to my will to live.  On the other hand, I have been intimate witness to the tenacity with
which this flawed and damaged body of mine clings to life, or my life
force clings to it... whichever.

During my recent pneumonia crisis, when drawing breath was such an effort, and all the effort I could give it was giving me such small rewards, my anoxic brain asked the question, "Why do I keep trying?"  No answer popped into my mind immediately, so when I had caught my breath sufficiently to do so, I consulted an oracle.  The answer I got from it had the ring of truth for me:  at this time, it is more for others that I'm living than for myself.  [It now occurs to me that if I make it through to summer, I'll be able to live for myself again.]

Last night there was another crisis.  It didn't hit me suddenly, but came after a couple of days of little sleep, lots of coughing, getting short of breath each time I moved around, but able to catch my breath and breathe relatively easily between coughing fits and excursions to the kitchen or the outhouse.  Then, after dark, when the temperature dropped into the teens (F), I stepped out the door and the cold air took my breath away.  I stumbled to the outhouse for a rest, but was unable to catch my breath.

I yelled for Doug to bring my nebulizer and albuterol.  By the time I had inhaled enough to get enough oxygen to stumble back into the house, I was shivering from the cold.  I sat shivering for a long time, concentrating all the effort I could muster on taking the deepest breaths I could manage.  As soon as I could speak, but before I was thinking clearly, I asked Doug if there was any good reason to go on trying so hard to keep breathing.  How moronic!  If such questions are to be asked, one asks oneself, not one's offspring.

But he had an answer for me.  He told me that, for selfish reasons, he would prefer that I keep on.  He's looking ahead to next summer, too.  He went on to say he had imagined taking his driving lessons with Greyfox.  I laughed, just a little, not enough to trigger a cough or get me out of breath.  Then I said, "There's always your dad," and he laughed, long and heartily.

He set up a honey bucket for me in the bathroom, and arranged a clear path for me, with things to lean on along the way, then he went to bed about 5 AM.  Not having to go out in the cold is going to make life easier for me, but that path to the bathroom is too long.  I made it into the hallway a while ago, and was very glad to find an empty coffee can along the way.  Ah, well, lah dee dah, life goes on.

That depends on how one defines, "writer's block." 

I think that fiction writers sometimes run out of inspiration or write their characters into a corner from which they don't see a way out.  That is sometimes called writer's block, but there are other ways to label it.

Research has been done on writer's block.  It was found that in most cases what was being called writer's block was depression.  Writers stop writing when we're depressed.  Most people tend to withdraw from social interactions and become relatively inactive in depression.  I have been depressed, and it affected my writing.  I have learned behavioral and nutritional fixes for such biochemical depression.

My first attempt at fiction writing became blocked about thirty years ago.  I switched to writing non-fiction.

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

JadedFey, who persuaded me to start blogging, did me a greater service than either of us imagined at the time.  At the time, Xanga was a plainer place and blogging a narrower concept than what they have become in the intervening years. 

Early on, Xangans motivated and encouraged me to write my memoirs.  They have allowed me to do for them the psychic work I love but lack the stamina to pursue in all the ways I've done before, and for a while Xanga even allowed them to pay me for my work.  I wouldn't have the motivation to go out and do as much photography as I do, if I didn't have you there to appreciate my images.  When I am at a loss for ideas to pursue, someone is always here with a challenge for me.  For all that and more, I owe you my appreciation.

I don't suppose I actually owe any of you explanations if you don't quite get what I'm getting at, and I certainly don't feel that I owe you any apologies if, by telling my truth, I somehow spoil your fun.  However, a lot of the fun I find here comes from responding to your comments, expanding, elucidating, and sometimes even apologizing, in the old sense of explaining and justifying something.  Before they grow too stale, I have a few comments from last week I'd like to answer.

CEXPGAL and A_Method_2_My_Madness suggested that my time-compressed coffeemaking adventure for the Featured_Grownups challenge, A Dark and Stormy Night, has rendered them incapable of ever again complaining about the winters in Utah and Minnesota, respectively.  I find those reactions a bit extreme, but not, on reflection, as extreme as the Alaskan winter.  My son, Doug, and I lived in that little trailer and wannigan off the power grid for fifteen years.  Every winter was an adventure, and the difficulties we faced then have given us a keen appreciation for modern amenities such as electricity.  I wouldn't mind developing a similar appreciation for running water and indoor plumbing, if such civilized luxuries ever come my way.

Flatpick46 said it, "seems like [I] do all the work," in the story.  I would point out that I had Greyfox grinding the coffee beans, driving the truck, carrying the water jugs, and holding the flashlight.  In his original story, he was the only character and nobody else's efforts or contributions were recognized.  As I acknowledged at the end, the story was a composite of many days and included a few adventures that happened to other people I know, and not to me.

Even so, it was not misleading or inappropriate for me to suggest that I did more of the work than Greyfox did.  When he moved in with us, he was a soft city person, a cheechako in all the most negative connotations of that word.  Due to his then-untreated narcissistic personality disorder, he considered himself to be above many of the tasks that needed to be done for our survival.  He taught me the meaning of the phrase, "creative incompetence," which I had never heard until he came here.  After he cross-threaded the brass propane fittings and I had to buy new fittings, then cut and flare the copper tubing to install them, I never asked him to handle a wrench again.

That is just one example.  I have mentioned a few others in previous posts.  In fairness, he never ran over the wok in the driveway.  That screwup was attributed to him in the (fictionalized) story because I had him driving the truck, something he was usually willing to do.  In fact, we used a wok for that job because before Greyfox ever came here I had once run over the big shallow pan that I used for holding coals to warm the car's oil pan.  He did, however, irrationally hate my hand cranked coffee grinder, yelled curses at it, and expressed a nostalgic yearning for his electric grinder every time he ground coffee beans. 

As most of you know, Greyfox's NPD is much better now.  He might never in this lifetime transcend his tendency to scream at the inanimate objects that offend him, but he has recently reported successfully using tools such as a hammer and screwdriver to accomplish various tasks at his cabin in Wasilla.  By the way, he turns sixty years old two days from now.  He will be in Anchorage that day, setting up his booth for the Alaska Gun Collectors Association fall gun show.  If you'd like to wish him a happy birthday, drop by the ArmsMerchant.

I know, the Autumnal Equinox was less than three weeks ago, and the Winter Solstice is still about two and a half months away, but it's winter.  There is no snow on the ground here yet, but this year there will be none of the early "practice" snow that melts as soon as it falls.  The ground is frozen, so the snow will stick whenever it finally gets here.

Signs of winter have been piling up, even if the snow hasn't.  This morning, Doug brought the seat in from the outhouse and put it in its usual winter place behind the woodstove.  I forgot to take it out with me an hour or so later when I went out, and had to come back for it.  It was either that or sit on the cold and splintery plywood bench.  All that handling brought the outhouse seat into our conversation a few minutes ago as I sat here, with Doug washing dishes across the room behind me.

I said to Doug that we need a new seat.  This one is cracked.  Sometimes when I sit down on it, a little of the tender skin on the back of my thigh gets into the crack and gets pinched if I shift my weight.  He hadn't been aware of my problems with the seat, but he had problems of his own.  He said he knew about the crack:  "I caught my foreskin in it," he said.  Ouch!

Another winter indicator:  we closed the bathroom window.  We have had a fire in the woodstove for weeks, ever since I started having shaking chills from the pneumonia, but we put off closing the window until the nights turned really cold:  low double digits F.  With that window shut, one of us has to get up frequently to let a cat in or out, or to close the door for the ones who are resourceful enough to open it for themselves.  You'd think that if they could open a door, they could close it, but they are cats.  Koji has pushed it shut a few times, but getting up to close it is easier for us monkeys than training the dog to do it consistently, so . . . .

Fewer than usual of my weekender part-time neighbors have been here since it turned cold.  Until there is enough snow for the snowmachiners, weekends will be relatively quiet.  The lack of snow isn't keeping the dog teams from their practice runs.  Several times a day lately, a team has run by here, pulling a 4-wheel ATV with two men on it.  It's an Iditarod team, probably, but I have only seen the men from the back and don't know whose team it is.  In addition to the mushers who live around here, several teams from the Lower 48 and other countries train in this area.

The 2007 International Sled Dog Symposium, Working Dog Trade Fair, and ADMA Fundraising Auction will be gathering in Fairbanks this month, October 19–21.

One of the first (if not the very first) of the mid-distance races of the season, the Sheep Mountain 150, comes in mid-December. 

Something special in Alaskan dog mushing will occur next March in Nome, after the Iditarod.  The 100th Anniversary running of the 408-mile All Alaska Sweepstakes runs from Nome to Candle and back, with a $100,000 winner-take-all purse.  The last running of the Sweepstakes was twenty-five years ago, on its seventy-fifth anniversary.

While I was online getting race particulars for this post, I made a couple of appalling discoveries.  On Wikipedia and topix.com, I saw references to "dog sled racing."  I have said it before.  I'll probably say it again.  The sleds don't race.  The dogs race.  The winner is not the first sled to cross the finish line.  It is the first nose across the line.

This morning's sunrise was too colorful to miss, but I am still too ill to have stayed out there long enough to catch the best light.  I got out of breath and came back in, then watched through the window as the color turned peachy orange before the sun came up.

I am giving myself permission to just go ahead and be non compos mentis today, since I don't think I have much choice in the matter.

You Are Apple Cider

Smooth and comforting. But downright nasty when cold.

You Are 48% Lady

You're part lady, part modern woman. Etiquette is important to you, but you brush aside rules that are outdated or silly.

You Have Many Alpha Tendencies

You're not a total alpha female, but you certainly know how to - and like to - get your way. You're forceful without being intimidating. You're confident without being vain. A perfect mix.

Sometime late last month, around the time I found out that I had pneumonia, we heard a PSA on the radio, announcing a low cost spay and neuter clinic to be held in Wasilla.  The date for the clinic was Friday the fifth.  My online research had informed me that pneumonia's course was usually about two weeks.  Since I had already had it more than half that long, I optimistically assumed that I would be over it in time to take Bagel in for spaying.  Bagel is a sweet, cuddly, funny looking calico cat who carries her funny name well.  She and her calico aunt Fancy
have bonded with each other, and both are indoor cats, the only ones in the
household who don't go outdoors.  Giving her away was unthinkable after
we had gotten to know her.

When we had Hilary and her youngest daughters Fancy and Tabby spayed last winter, they had been the only intact females in our household.  Then Alice, Hilary's daughter from her first litter, who had left us and joined the feral population the previous summer, moved into the water heater compartment and had kittens.  It is an unheated insulated space adjoining Doug's bedroom and the bathroom, opening to the outside, but there hasn't been a water heater in there since a previous set of house sitters abandoned this place and fled to town during a winter power outage, letting pipes, water heater, and toilet tank and bowl freeze and burst.  Alice started coming indoors every day for food and water, and we could
tell she was nursing.  Then we heard the kittens through the walls.

Sometime last March or April, Doug unscrewed the cover, opened the compartment, and revealed the kittens nestled in a bed of fiberglas insulation torn from the walls.  We brought the kittens indoors to save them from the fiberglas.  Alice weaned them very early and disappeared again.  The kittens ended up being named Val, Emmett, Suzy Creemcheez, and Bagel.  Bagel was the last to find a name that stuck.  We tried many, and settled at last on Bagel because she had a sister the color of cream cheese and the family already had one cat named for pastry, Muffin.   Suzy moved to Wasilla where Greyfox knew someone who wanted a kitten, and we bonded with the other three.  Spaying Bagel was the practical course, and the low cost option is also practical.  Not letting pneumonia discourage me, I made an appointment.

I had to decide which car to take.  Streak, the 1987 Subaru wagon I've been driving for five years or so, had some mechanical problems.  Blur, his almost identical replacement, has electrical difficulties.  Streak would reliably start and run, but we knew that before long his condition would go critical and he'd break down.  Sometimes, Blur's ignition switch does not respond to the key, and he just sits there, dead.  Blur's tires are also problematic, and Streak's are better.  My decision to take Streak was influenced by Greyfox's having salvaged a big piece of cat furniture, a carpeted tower he said wouldn't fit in the hatch.  Streak has a roof rack; Blur doesn't.

The plan was for me to drive and sit in the car while Doug did all the leg work.  He loaded the kennel into Streak's hatch, put Bagel in it, and we took off before dawn Friday morning for our 7 AM appointment on the far end of Wasilla.  Doug has yet to try driving in the dark, nor has he attempted driving in the mix of rain, snow and wind we were facing that morning.  But even in the right hand seat, he was thinking about driving.  About the time we were passing the spring where we get water, he commented on how different everything was in the dark.  I agreed.  A few miles down the road, he said he'd been trying to figure out how I kept from being blinded by the oncoming headlights.  I pointed out the white line along the right edge of our lane, and told him to focus on that as a guide when meeting bright lights.  "Don't shut your eyes," I said, then went on to explain that when there is snow and ice on the road, the white line is invisible and you just have to do your best to avoid the oncoming cars, the ditch, and the occasional moose.

A new noise, a rhythmic clunking from the left front area of the car, started before we got to Houston.  Doug felt the vibration through the floor.  I felt it in the pedals and steering wheel.  It ceased on right hand curves and worsened when I steered to the left.  We stopped under some lights in Houston, but couldn't see anything obvious like a loose wheel or low tire.  I noticed then that it worsened on deceleration and decreased when I was accelerating.  Back on the road, it was worsening as we entered the traffic on the edge of Wasilla.  I was imagining Click and Clack, the car guys, saying, "...and you've been driving it this way how long?!?"  When the clunking started morphing into a grind, I started trying to get across three lanes of traffic into a gas station on the left.  Along that stretch of highway, the only thing on the right is the railroad track.

We lucked out in that the gas station had a pay phone.  I stayed in the car, conserving my breath while Doug went in and called Greyfox.  We had planned to meet at his place for breakfast after dropping Bagel off at the clinic.  It was too early for Greyfox to be up, and we know that he often doesn't listen to his messages so Doug didn't bother leaving a voice mail.  I sent him back with instructions to leave a message that time.  Then we sat in the car until I needed to use the rest room.  I used the pay phone, too, and left a voice mail at the number for the Dog and Puppy Rescue organization sponsoring the spay clinic, saying we had car trouble and couldn't make it.   Their outgoing message said that volunteers check voice mail at 10 AM and 4 PM on weekdays, so I knew my message was a mere formality, but I apologized anyway.

We sat a bit longer, getting hungrier, until I decided to risk limping Streak through the strip mall parking lot to the restaurant at the other end.  I chose a parking spot that would allow easy access for the tow truck, and leaned on Doug's arm for a slow walk across the lot.  I was only slightly winded when we went inside and found an old friend waiting to give the waitress his breakfast order.  We joined him and his friend, and I used his cell phone to call Greyfox, leaving another voice mail telling him our new location.  After breakfast, we returned to the car and waited until dawn, when Doug went to the supermarket for some bowls to give Bagel, who no longer needed to be fasting for surgery, some water and leftover scrambled eggs.

After some more waiting, Doug took off toward the pay phone on the theory that it was probably prudent not to expect Greyfox to listen to his voice mail, but catch him after he turned on his phone.  Greyfox surprised me by showing up while I was still watching Doug walk down the strip mall toward the gas station.  He drove down and picked up Doug, then they came back and we discussed logistics for our day.  To make room for us and our stuff, Greyfox needed to offload a bunch of merchandise from his minivan which is also his roadside stand.  Doug needed to take his new and non-functional X-Box to the UPS store near Greyfox's cabin, so I reclined my seat and nestled under a couple of jackets, using my albuterol nebulizer and murmuring reassurances to Bagel in her kennel while they were gone.

Traffic came and went as I rested there, then Doug opened the passenger door, leaned in, and said, "Are you okay?"  I paused, considering, and asked, "compared to what?"  After the requisite comedic beat, he replied, "a corpse?" and I said, "Oh, yeah, I'm a lively corpse."  Then Greyfox walked up behind Doug, leaned in past him and asked, "Are you okay?"  Still not quite sure how to answer that with an inaccurate "yes" or a possibly overly alarming, "no," I said, "compared to what?"  When Greyfox said, "a corpse," of course it cracked Doug and me up.  Greyfox was looking a little confused as he went on to ask me, "Is that ambulance for you?"  After I stopped laughing and caught my breath, I assured him that the presence nearby of an ambulance was purely coincidental.

They had brought the grocery sale ads.  Doug and I sat in Streak, talking to Bagel and working on our shopping list while Greyfox had his breakfast.  I then rode along as Greyfox drove, and Doug did our food shopping, with some occasional help or interference (depending on who is telling the story) from Greyfox.  That done, they took me back to Streak, where I used Greyfox's cell phone to call AAA.  The guys then went on to the building supply store to complete our shopping, taking Bagel with them.  Triple A had told me they needed a phone number where I could be reached while I waited for the tow truck.  Greyfox left his cell with me.   For some unfathomable reason, AAA called me back three times after I called them, just to inform me that help was on the way.  One of those times, while I was digging the phone out of my purse, I broke a fingernail.

I rode in the wrecker and got to Greyfox's cabin before he and Doug did.  When they got back, we transferred all our emergency gear and crap from Streak to Greyfox's minivan, loaded up some stuff he had been accumulating for us, but didn't have room for the cat furniture that had been my main reason for driving Streak that day.  We left Streak there, on the theory that it will be easier to sell him from there than out here.  Since Streak has the best tires, Doug and I will probably go into town in Blur for some tire switching before Greyfox puts a for sale sign out.  That will be either when I feel better or whenever we start running out of supplies again, whichever comes first.

I might have delayed my recovery from the pneumonia with that day of adrenaline fueled activity and the previous similar busy day of adrenaline rushes and letdowns.  Delayed, maybe, but still I'm recovering.  I can sleep through the night now, and no longer am having difficulty breathing except after activity.  My appetite is returning. 

Bagel was glad to get home.  The lady from Dog and Puppy Rescue left me a voice mail while we were out, thanking me for calling, and expressing her regret that we couldn't make it to the spay clinic.  She told me when the next low cost clinic is scheduled and invited me to call for a new appointment.  It is a month away.  With any luck....
 

This week's subject is suggested by handmade_n:

Pets and their people

I am not the photographer of the first shot below.  I'm the dog's companion and the cat's furniture, there in the rumpled bed.  My son, Doug, took this shot.

The rest of these photos are mine.  Below:  Frodo with his big friend Greyfox.

Doug and Bagel

Doug and Koji

Let me begin by telling you about the Alaskan electorate.  I can't figure them out.  They totally exemplify the madness of crowds.  As a mob, they tend to elect sleazy liars who tell them stupid crap they want to believe, promise them things any intelligent citizen knows they won't have the power to deliver, and falsely malign their more honest opponents.  Many seem to have an overwhelming drive to participate in the democratic process, but no desire at all to inform themselves on the issues and candidates involved. 

On a number of occasions, they have voted to support an issue and then turned right around and voted to rescind it after they became aware of what they had approved.  One fine example of that was the capital move.  Juneau, the state capital, named for Joe Juneau, a shady French Canadian gold prospector who reportedly paid voters to vote for him when the little boom town was being named, is a small city in the Panhandle of Southeast Alaska.  With no road to or from the rest of the state, access to Juneau is by boat, white knuckle airlines, or the state ferry through the Inside Passage.

I suspect that Juneau was chosen as the capital originally because of its accessibility from Seattle and the rest of the U.S., regardless of its isolation from Alaska.  The lack of public access to the legislature has long been a source of complaint.  In 1960 and '62, propositions to move the capital were defeated.  In 1974, the voters approved the capital move, and in 1976, they selected the town of Willow as the future capital site.  In 1982, after people in Juneau initiated a campaign to inform the voters about the costs of such a move, the electorate decided to leave the capital where it was.

This Tuesday, voters down on the Kenai Peninsula set a speed record for reversing their decisions that will be very difficult to break.  They re-elected three incumbents to the Borough Assembly:  Paul Fischer, Pete Sprague and Gary Superman.  At the same time, they passed a retroactive term limits measure that disqualifies them from holding office.  There are some doubts about the constitutionality of retroactive legislation, and I'm sure they will work this nonsense out eventually, but... people... REALLY!?  What were you thinking?  Were you thinking?

Our old chainsaw hadn't been run in almost nine years.  Last time we needed some trees cut down that were threatening to fall on our roof, it wouldn't start, so Charley (my ex, Doug's dad), who was doing the cutting, used his own saw.  Since then, his old saw broke and he has been unable to obtain the part he needs to fix it.  A few days ago, he and Doug and I took our saw to the shop for an overhaul and sharpening.  Doug and I picked it up yesterday and stopped at Charley's cabin on the way home, to let him know we had the saw so he could decide when he wanted to come over and do the tree cutting.  I did the driving that time, and waited in the car while Doug did all the to-ing and fro-ing.

I had a rough night last night, and wasn't breathing well today. When Charley called this morning to say he was ready whenever we'd come and get him, I woke Doug.  I didn't feel it would be safe for me to drive, considering the way I stagger around and keep feeling faint from lack of oxygen, so I wanted him to drive to pick up his dad.  He has a learner's permit, which requires that he drive only when accompanied by a licensed driver, so I had to go along to keep him legal.

Until today, all of Doug's driving mileage has been on the dirt roads around here, and he had never been out of the lowest two gears.  His shifting is still gear-grindingly rough, he lurches to a start, turns wide and often too fast, and sometimes forgets to clutch when he stops, stalling the engine.  He's got a lot of bad driving habits to unlearn from playing GTA and other games.  On his latest previous driving lesson, he got distracted by something beside the road and drove into the ditch.  That was just a few blocks after taking a turn so fast that we both felt the wheels on one side lift off the ground, and just shortly before I told him to head for home.

I had all that in mind and wasn't feeling sanguine about having him drive the mile or so to Charley's place, but after discussing it with Doug we concluded that there was less risk in his driving than in mine under the circumstances.  We can do most of the trip on back roads, so there was only about a third of a mile of highway that he had to traverse.  He started the car, stalled the engine on his first attempt to back out of the driveway, and lurched out on the next try, almost into the opposite ditch -- par for the course, nothing to worry about.

We made it around the first two turns and were discussing the proper technique of slowing down as one approaches a turn, then lightly accelerating into it, as we approached the third turn.  It is a blind corner, and he started his left turn a little early, putting him in the middle of the road as he entered the intersection and we saw the wrecker (tow-truck) approaching.  We seldom encounter traffic on these back roads, and had never been this close to a head-on collision before.

Doug says he was starting to hit the clutch and brake when my yelp startled him and caused him to hit the gas instead.  Fortunately, he was reflexively steering to the right and the road was wide enough at that point that he didn't go all the way into the ditch.  Whew!  We made it through that turn and were at the stop sign by the highway when we started discussing the strategy for the paved stretch of the trip.  He said he wasn't confident about shifting, wasn't sure where third gear was, and I said if he planned to go the whole way in second gear he'd have to hug the shoulder and use his emergency flashers so no fast car or big truck would rear-end us.

After he pulled onto the highway, I talked him up to third gear, then told him to maintain his course and speed until he got across the railroad tracks, then begin to slow down for the left turn off the highway just beyond the tracks.  He acknowledged the instructions, but I didn't detect any deceleration until he was entering the turn, when he hit the brakes the same time he twisted the wheel.  We veered across the highway and bumped off onto the dirt road and nearly into the ditch before he got it straightened out.  We had a couple of blocks then, in which to discuss what is meant by "slow down" (he had taken his foot off the gas, and the tranny out of gear, free-wheeling, not braking) and the proper technique for making turns (again), before we got to where we were going.

I stayed put while Doug went to fetch Charley.  As they were walking toward the car, I heard Charley say to Doug, "What adrenaline rush?"  I said to Charley as he opened the door, "The operant question there is, "Which adrenaline rush?"  Charley got into the driver's seat and Doug climbed into the back for the ride over here.  The adrenaline in my system was apparently stronger than pneumonia.  It had cleared up some of my mental fog and was allowing me to breathe more freely, so I got my camera and kept the guys company while they worked, making sure that the trees that were cut were the ones that needed to go.

Doug climbed a ladder and tied a rope onto the bug-infested spruce tree.

Then he pulled on the rope to make sure it fell next to the woodpile, where we wanted it.

Charley cut that one down, and it fell just where we wanted it.

The butt end of the felled tree shows the tunnels of the carpenter ants.  You can take my word for it that there is plenty of evidence of bark beetle infestation as well.

Doug roped a smallish aspen that was leaning toward the house.  It has been losing its leaves to leaf miners for several years, looking increasingly sickly.  It fell where we wanted it, too.

Another aspen, bigger and even sicklier, wasn't threatening to fall on the house or cars, so Charley cut it without the rope, notching it to fall the way it was naturally bent.

When he got it cut through, the tree just stood there on its stump until he and Doug used two splitting mauls to encourage it to fall.  Charley held the head of one wedged into the cut, while Doug swung the other and drove in the wedge.  It fell, finally, where it was supposed to, and the last small tree also fell close enough to where it was aimed that it didn't quite wipe out the fuel oil barrel. 

There were enough close calls that everyone had a few more adrenaline surges before the job was done.  My adrenaline hadn't worn off yet when we took Charley home, so I did the driving.  Now, I'm ready to crawl into bed with a book.