the tale of tall ladders
This was my last letter as President of JOCOMG. This year our Chapter set records or near records for sales revenue, number of community classes and total recorded volunteer hours. We also had a high percentage of our students graduating. It was an honor to serve you as Master Gardeners. My heartfelt thanks to all of you who supported me and for your compassion and dedication in supporting our community.
I was asked by several members to have my last letter return to my misguided adventures. I told Carolyn I do not have anymore. She gave me the “are you kidding me look?” and said how about “ladders, oleanders, bougainvillea and Christmas lights. So here it is….Tales of the Ladder: Will we (I) ever learn?
Carolyn wanted me to lower the height of an oleander hedge for a home we were restoring in an historic neighborhood in Phoenix, Arizona. I climbed the rungs of an old step ladder I purchased in a garage sale. I chose to ignore the red warning on one of the rungs which said not to go any higher. I treated it as a challenge, not a warning. My theory was why buy a seven foot ladder if you can only use five feet? The last two feet must be some sort of “ladder tax”. While trying to reach the top of the oleander bush the ladder started to wobble. In a useless attempt to regain my balance by swinging the power hedger like a drunken pirate, I cut the power cord in half. I panicked since I did not know where the live wire was. I made a wise choice to get off the ladder and trim the bush down to three feet high versus six feet so I did not have to use that ladder again.
The next year we gave up restoring older homes and moved to Scottsdale, Arizona where the community chose what you could plant. Trees were limited to Mesquite, Palo Verde, Jacaranda etc. Cactus and crushed granite dominated most of local yards and most color was introduced with bougainvillea. My challenge was to trim back a bougainvillea bush which had grown to about 15 feet in height and was lying on my roof. I had to buy a new 14-foot extension ladder to tackle this job. As I climbed the ladder wearing nothing but tennis shoes and shorts I passed the red warning, (Challenge), rung and began to cut six foot stems with my electric hedger and repaired power cord. I could not cut completely through the largest stem with the hedger no matter how I tried. Then the six foot stem slowly started to fall towards me. I let out a silent scream as a dozen or more two to three inch needles imbedded themselves into my back and legs. Exacerbating the problem was that the piece of bougainvillea imbedded in my back was still attached to the main stem. Any movement on my part just drove the needles deeper into my flesh. Fortunately I had a pruner in my pocket and painfully cut through the rest of the stem. I climbed down the ladder in pain, the bush attached to my back, bleeding from my neck to my ankles, looking like a creature from a “B” movie. I rang the front door bell. Carolyn opened the door and proceeded to complete pruning the plant attached to my back. She then applied the appropriate antiseptic and mumbled “what is wrong with you?”
One of our family’s favorite movies is Christmas Vacation starring Chevy Chase. My kids loved the movie because over time they have seen me perform all the scenes in the movie. They love to remind me, “Dad, remember when you did that?” We moved to West Linn, Oregon in November and Carolyn asked me to install Christmas lights on the exterior of the house (a two story, but I wisely decided just the first floor was best). I attached the strings of lights to the rain gutters using plastic hooks. One side of the hook attached to the gutter while the other side supported the string of lights. It was a challenge since the home was on a sloping lot. The gutter on the left side was the standard 10 feet high while the gutter on the right side of the house was closer to 16 feet. To accomplish the task I had to buy a 24 foot extension ladder which also had the red warning rung which again I took as a challenge.
On New Year’s Day I attempted to take down the Christmas lights. My plan was to start on the high side. I climbed up the ladder passing the red warning (challenge) rung and easily removed a couple of hooks freeing up a section of the light string. I did not want to climb down the ladder, move the ladder two feet, and climb back up the ladder just to remove two more hooks so I made a very dumb decision. I tugged on the string of lights, a hook broke in two but I accepted that because it freed up a section of the lights. That’s when I repeated the Chevy Chase scene and yanked on the string with more force. Plastic hooks were flying everywhere. I was feeling pretty proud of myself until I realized the ladder was not leaning on the rain gutter anymore. It was standing straight up and the only thing keeping me from an ambulance ride to the hospital was the light string I was holding and a plastic hook holding the other end. My life passed before my eyes, pizza, hamburgers, bacon… I gently pulled on the light string and the ladder started to lean back towards the house but then I heard a “click” and saw a plastic hook drop to the ground. The ladder returned to its straight up position. I was now convinced that I would never see the Chicago Cubs win the World Series. Out of options, I repeated the gentle pull action until the ladder eventually rested on the rain gutter and my heart started to beat again. I removed the remaining lights and made a decision to only install Christmas lights on our shrubs for the remaining time we lived.
Happy Holidays and may you never have to climb higher than your raised beds.
John Farias
I was asked by several members to have my last letter return to my misguided adventures. I told Carolyn I do not have anymore. She gave me the “are you kidding me look?” and said how about “ladders, oleanders, bougainvillea and Christmas lights. So here it is….Tales of the Ladder: Will we (I) ever learn?
Carolyn wanted me to lower the height of an oleander hedge for a home we were restoring in an historic neighborhood in Phoenix, Arizona. I climbed the rungs of an old step ladder I purchased in a garage sale. I chose to ignore the red warning on one of the rungs which said not to go any higher. I treated it as a challenge, not a warning. My theory was why buy a seven foot ladder if you can only use five feet? The last two feet must be some sort of “ladder tax”. While trying to reach the top of the oleander bush the ladder started to wobble. In a useless attempt to regain my balance by swinging the power hedger like a drunken pirate, I cut the power cord in half. I panicked since I did not know where the live wire was. I made a wise choice to get off the ladder and trim the bush down to three feet high versus six feet so I did not have to use that ladder again.
The next year we gave up restoring older homes and moved to Scottsdale, Arizona where the community chose what you could plant. Trees were limited to Mesquite, Palo Verde, Jacaranda etc. Cactus and crushed granite dominated most of local yards and most color was introduced with bougainvillea. My challenge was to trim back a bougainvillea bush which had grown to about 15 feet in height and was lying on my roof. I had to buy a new 14-foot extension ladder to tackle this job. As I climbed the ladder wearing nothing but tennis shoes and shorts I passed the red warning, (Challenge), rung and began to cut six foot stems with my electric hedger and repaired power cord. I could not cut completely through the largest stem with the hedger no matter how I tried. Then the six foot stem slowly started to fall towards me. I let out a silent scream as a dozen or more two to three inch needles imbedded themselves into my back and legs. Exacerbating the problem was that the piece of bougainvillea imbedded in my back was still attached to the main stem. Any movement on my part just drove the needles deeper into my flesh. Fortunately I had a pruner in my pocket and painfully cut through the rest of the stem. I climbed down the ladder in pain, the bush attached to my back, bleeding from my neck to my ankles, looking like a creature from a “B” movie. I rang the front door bell. Carolyn opened the door and proceeded to complete pruning the plant attached to my back. She then applied the appropriate antiseptic and mumbled “what is wrong with you?”
One of our family’s favorite movies is Christmas Vacation starring Chevy Chase. My kids loved the movie because over time they have seen me perform all the scenes in the movie. They love to remind me, “Dad, remember when you did that?” We moved to West Linn, Oregon in November and Carolyn asked me to install Christmas lights on the exterior of the house (a two story, but I wisely decided just the first floor was best). I attached the strings of lights to the rain gutters using plastic hooks. One side of the hook attached to the gutter while the other side supported the string of lights. It was a challenge since the home was on a sloping lot. The gutter on the left side was the standard 10 feet high while the gutter on the right side of the house was closer to 16 feet. To accomplish the task I had to buy a 24 foot extension ladder which also had the red warning rung which again I took as a challenge.
On New Year’s Day I attempted to take down the Christmas lights. My plan was to start on the high side. I climbed up the ladder passing the red warning (challenge) rung and easily removed a couple of hooks freeing up a section of the light string. I did not want to climb down the ladder, move the ladder two feet, and climb back up the ladder just to remove two more hooks so I made a very dumb decision. I tugged on the string of lights, a hook broke in two but I accepted that because it freed up a section of the lights. That’s when I repeated the Chevy Chase scene and yanked on the string with more force. Plastic hooks were flying everywhere. I was feeling pretty proud of myself until I realized the ladder was not leaning on the rain gutter anymore. It was standing straight up and the only thing keeping me from an ambulance ride to the hospital was the light string I was holding and a plastic hook holding the other end. My life passed before my eyes, pizza, hamburgers, bacon… I gently pulled on the light string and the ladder started to lean back towards the house but then I heard a “click” and saw a plastic hook drop to the ground. The ladder returned to its straight up position. I was now convinced that I would never see the Chicago Cubs win the World Series. Out of options, I repeated the gentle pull action until the ladder eventually rested on the rain gutter and my heart started to beat again. I removed the remaining lights and made a decision to only install Christmas lights on our shrubs for the remaining time we lived.
Happy Holidays and may you never have to climb higher than your raised beds.
John Farias