"There were still remaining some few prisoners who were not wounded. These were asked by L'Ollonais if any more Spaniards did lie farther on in ambuscade? To whom they answered, there were. Then he commanded them to be brought before him, one by one, and asked if there was no other way to be found to the town but that? This he did out of a design to excuse, if possible, those ambuscades. But they all constantly answered him, they knew none. Having asked them all, and finding they could show him no other way, L'Ollonais grew outrageously passionate; insomuch that he drew his cutlass, and with it cut open the breast of one of those poor Spaniards, and pulling out his heart with his sacrilegious hands, began to bite and gnaw it with his teeth, like a ravenous wolf, saying to the rest: I will serve you all alike, if you show me not another way."

-from The Buccaneers by A. O. Exquemelin

Labels: action, blood, crooks, culture, cutlass, damage, death, earrings, history, pirate, popeye, swindlers, time, yaaaaaaH

Maybe this little tiny baby Krishna will cheer me up:



.....let's see.... marginally. I think if I layer on top of it the fact that Ernest Borgnine is still alive. He was in:

McHale's Navy
Demetruis and the Gladiators
Bad Day at Black Rock
The Vikings (HAIL RAGANAR!)
Barabbas
Emperor of the North
Escape from New York
and many episodes of Spongebob

People croak every day - he was awesome in Bad Day before I was born.

Labels: aah, augh, belief, cesspool, cobweb, dad, damage, depressed, ecch, enlightenment, evacuate, ew, fall, heat, how

We had a spectacular tree- a pendulous pine about forty feet high.



It was killed by drought, root compression, carpenter ants and shot borer.



The crew I hired brought a giant bucket truck



The operator had to avoid hiiting the powerlines to the house.




The cutting began.



They brought a chipper - or as I call it-


a "widowermaker" to consolidate the fallen branches.



I don't know why it was clled Chuck, but they explained to me they had to pay a competitor to chip the bigger logs, and then the competitor sold the chips as mulch, making money twice off the deal.



Here's the tree stump frowning - so sad. I fed this tree, watered it and pursued the invading insects as best I could. One day, there were zero needles anymore.



They gound the stump as part of the deal. I dunno why but the stump grinder was named after a 17th century Dutch painter - Jan Vermeer


Carpenter ant damage:



Feats of strength were performed by the crew.

Labels: branches, carpenter ant, crew, damage, glyphjockey, pine, removal, shot borer, stump, tree, wood chipper