Still coughing? Is this the beginning of the end or the time to get the drugs?

The box was handed to the mail carrier after I raced over to his truck and caught his attention and wait for me to retrieve the box from the house - I was out in the yard conferring with the handyman friend Antonio about taking down the dead pine. Today was was too wet to leave the box on the porch awaiting postal pickup.

I had no plans to take down the pine today but one of those little powerful thunderstorms passed through this morning that hit the yard across the street, dropping two large limbs in the road. I went over with my reciprocating saw to cut up the part that was over pavement and the rest Antonio is going to haul away (the homeowner friend is 90, so he's not working with us, but we all have wet feet from standing in his yard consulting.) As we all talked about which of his trees to take today (the downed branches are from a red oak but there's a huge rotten mulberry that is going to split his house in half if he doesn't do something soon) versus later and I pointed out my ailing pine (much smaller, but almost completely dead now). And some of the deadwood in the vitex I was going to saw out myself. Since Antonio has another tree to take in the next block he'll work his way down to our houses. I asked him what his Monday had looked like before the storm - it was absolutely quiet.

Before the tree activity I had stuffed the next to the last batch of sunflowers into the trash can for today's pickup, and stacked the rest in preparation to cut on Thursday. But since Antonio will be hauling off a tree I'll drop the sunflowers on top of that load and save myself a little work.

I've changed wet shoes twice today and see at least one more pair destined for a soak this morning.

Meanwhile in Dog World Cookie's Invisible Fence collar keeps falling off. It's one from Tractor Supply that has a couple of flimsy hinges on the clasp. I have a nylon collar to put new holes in and attach the collar - not easy, but it must be done. The job is a combination of drilling and melting the frayed edges to create durable holes that the prongs go through at exactly the right width.

The truck and trailer for hauling dead wood has arrived.