DAY 273
01.02.08
TREE 105
PART 4
I had a really hard time going to bed early last night. After almost two weeks off from work I was not ready to get up at 5:30am and start working outside. Especially with the single digit wind chill and snow. I was hoping and praying not to have work. I kept waking up through the night feeling uneasy of the possibility of freezing my ass off in a job I don’t like. My alarm went off at 5:30 and I stayed in bed to wait for my backup alarm five minutes later. As I lay there half asleep and half angry, the phone rings. It’s the boss’ wife saying there is no work today because it’s too cold. WooHOO! I sincerely thanked her for the call and then wet back to sleep.
Hours later I finally got up and for the first time in a while I knew exactly where I was going to go today: Cherokee Park. It is a nice change from the constant search for a good tree. Yes, sometimes the exploring is a great aspect of the whole experience, but lately with work and the weather, the early dark and current living location, it was becoming difficult.
So I drove into town and parked at almost the same exact place as yesterday. I got out of the truck and it was cold. I ran across the grass to the spot where my sycamore grows.
When I first climbed it the woods made it almost impossible to get to the tree from the field. Now I just walked right to it. I waited to take my hands out of my pockets till the last second. Then I jumped for the first low branch and started the climb. And just like before when I started to reclimb trees the first time in this project, it amazed me how much minute detail I remembered about each tree. There was one spot where the main trunk splits and the path to my ribbon has an unsettling transfer. I paused and deliberated almost just because I knew I did last time. But I figured it out and got all the way to the top of the branch. I was high!
And the limb was thin. To reach the white ribbon I moved up two more little limbs and it really moved under my weight.
I was leaning way out over a possible long fall but I trusted the strength of the limb. I just had to be sure to hold on.
I moved back down those two small limbs so I could feel more comfortable using both hands to take pictures.
Then I climbed back down. I cop car drove by as I descended and I froze. He didn’t see me and neither did most of the people walking or driving by even though I was right on the edge of the road.
The difficult transfer was easier down and I quickly made it to the first low limb. It is a nice and horizontal branch and I decided to try my luck balancing out on it. And I made it 12-15 feet out before jumping to the ground. It was a damn good climb but a cold one. Though I get the feeling I won’t be improving on my previous climbs for this part of the project since I remember getting to the top of most of the trees.
1-8-09: Ladies and Gentlemen, kids of all ages, welcome back to the Daily Climb blog. In Part 4 you will read about my reclimbs of the trees from Part 3. The large bold text is from the entry I wrote one year ago. The large pictures are from that climb, and any small images are from the first climb of that tree. All that I write below in this small italic text is my current response to the old entry and my sharing of my most recent climb. Please pay close attention to the dates at the top of each section to keep track. Sorry for the confusing time shifts. I hope you enjoy my entries and I encourage any questions or comments which can be made by clicking the "leave a comment" link at the bottom of each entry. These can be made anonymously without registering on LiveJournal. Thank you again for visiting my blog.
—
Not to confuse you further, but since I am behind in my posts you’ll notice the discrepancy between the dates of the above and below sections. They should be exactly one year apart: 1-2-08, and 1-2-09. But like I said, I am behind almost a week and will do my best to catch up in the following week. This will also explain why the climb I am about to write about is from last Thursday, 1-1-09, and not yesterday, 1-7-09. I have learned a lot from blogging in these last many months and if I ever do another major blog project, I promise I’ll make it easier to follow.
That being said, last Thursday was the first of the year, 2009. I was at my grandma’s in Upper Sandusky, Ohio with family and we spent most of our time eating and sleeping throughout the day. I played with my 2-year-old nephew, Mitchell, for much of the day and let the light hours slip away. It was very cold outside and I just wasn’t bursting to go out there. But after dinner I had to do it before it just got too late. I layered up and headed outside to climb the third and last red maple in my grandma’s front yard.
Having climbed the second one the day before and the first one months before on a prior trip, I knew what I was getting into. They are all close in height and structure with many branches starting at about head height. Another quick and easy climb that seemed to fit the mood of the trip.
I scrambled up to the top quickly and sat to take pictures. I snapped a few shots of the tree with flash
and a few more of the street and house without.
Some neighbors came outside to go for a walk and didn’t seem to notice me. When I was finished shooting I didn’t linger long before climbing down out of the tree and the cold. I had warmed from the climb but was ready to get back inside for more food, sleep, and a little football which I really didn’t care about.