A friend of ours bought a small house in a very rural part of Georgia. The backyard is very large, but when he bought it, it was so overrun with undergrowth and mosquitoes that he couldn't even go exploring. He has spent most of the summer cleaning it up. This is the latest funny story of his adventure:

The backyard of the house is actually starting to look pretty good, especially considering that the only tools I had for yard work were the Kabar knife and the sling blade that Slingblade Mike had loaned me.

Rather than get rid of all of the jungle, I decided that forging paths through the overgrowth would allow me to have different areas of the yard, rather than just a large open space. So, there is an area dedicated to vegetable gardening, an place for the fire pit, a spot for a reading hammock, and a space for the bee farm in the spring. The problem, however, with making trails which go from place to place, is the ivy.

The ivy loves my yard the way Cane Toads find Australia "quite pleasant". It crawls along with wild abandon, clinging and clutching anything that attempts to pass. It was my hope that walking the trails enough would wear the ivy down, revealing a path, but after several weeks of walking, it was still a hazard, and I had been tripped and brought down by it several times. I started to think of a way to define a trail as inexpensively as possible. Gravel and pebbles cost a fortune, and sand would be kicked and washed away in no time.

After pondering the problem for some time, I eventually came to the conclusion that wood chips would do the trick. I had an excess of branches and small trees that I had pruned out of the yard, and my father had loaned me a chipper machine to get rid of them.

First, the piles of branches, sticks and logs had to be trimmed down into an acceptable eating size for the machine. Then, after feeding a couple of piles of wood into it, the storage hopper of chips had to be emptied into plastic yard bags, and the entire process repeated. I spent an entire day like this. It was the kind of work where you don't think you're tired until you sit down for a minute, then you never want to get up again. I turned on the water hose, put my head in my hands and sprayed a cool mist on my face for what felt like hours.

When I poured the chips along the trail, I was pleased to find that they were perfect. They covered the ivy, and showed clearly where the paths were. The disappointing thing was that four giant bags them still did not do the trick, and although I was only about a bag shy of finishing, I was out of wood to chip.

I started to think about what could fit into the chipper. Unwanted furniture? The old door in the basement? I wasn't using it...

Yesterday, Safety Julia and I were driving along, when I saw some workers from "King Tree Experts" taking off the branches of a giant magnolia tree. The owner of the house was standing in the front yard, looking on approvingly. He'd probably hated that tree for years. Maybe he kept it around because his wife liked it. Maybe she's left him, or maybe he's found out she's been unfaithful, and the tree was the first to pay for it. Either way, it meant wood chips for me! I darted over to the big truck and climbed on board like he was the ice cream man. It was the summer of 1986 all over again, and I was looking for a nutty buddy.

I asked what they were going to do with the wood when they were done, and he said he didn't know. I told him to drop some branches, chips, whatever to my house, and I told him where it was. Although he nodded in agreement, I never really expected to see him again.

But about an hour later, there was a knock at the door. They had backed the big truck into my driveway, and were asking where I wanted my wood chips. It was a happy, happy day for me. I gestured to the end of the driveway, thinking about how I could finish the trail and I might even have enough chips left over to go over the existing paths, just for good measure.

The back of the truck opened up, and there were a LOT of wood chips in there. I had expected to see some mighty piles in there, but it was more like Fibber McGhee's wood-chip-closet inside, packed to the very top. I asked one of them if I could help to rake out what I needed, and he looked at me strangely, and told me that they could manage. He took out a small chainsaw on a stick, and used it to cut a dead branch away that was hanging over my driveway.

Now THAT'S gratitude! I thought. They've been working all day long on that tree, but since I'm taking a couple of bags of chips off their hands, they still take a minute to get rid of that branch over my driveway. That wasn't bothering me... without asking...

Realizing it would be easier if I had a couple of bags to fill up, I yelled over the chainsaw. "I'm going to get a lawn bag to put it in, okay?" They waved at me and nodded. I ran into the house to get the bag. While I was pulling it off the roll, I started to consider the idea of bringing out TWO bags. I hated to be greedy, and while it would be a lot of chips, and more effort for the guys to fill up both bags, I decided with a nod that I really needed two bagfuls. For a brief moment, I wondered if they'd get mad if I wanted three bags.

While I was trying to find the opening to one of the lawn bags, I heard a loud noise coming from the truck in the yard. I stood on the porch, and saw the back of the truck start to tilt back. With a sickening lunge, the chips shifted back, towards my driveway.

As the first chips landed, I snapped out of my dazed stupor. "No! OH NOOOOOOO!!!!" I screamed, suddenly awake. The guys with the truck couldn't hear my cries over the din of the hydraulics, and the bay continued to ease back. "I JUST NEED TWO... NO, THREE BAGFULS! NOT THE WHOLE..." The chips slid out of the truck, and two full tons of wood chips poured out in a tidal wave onto my driveway.

At some point, I just gave up and started taking pictures.

Then it was over. The sawdust was settling like fallout and the truck bay began to lower with a loud hiss. Looking up, I was able to see that the real reason the branch had been cut was to clear room for the truck. I walked over to the mountain of chips, which was as tall as myself. I wondered what I was going to do with all the wood chips, when one of the guys waved a gloved hand at me. I waved back weakly. I realized I was still holding my lawn bags when he called out, "I don't think those bags are gonna be enough man. You need, like... a wheelbarrow!"