The Alligator and the Power Saw

Tuesday morning, while drinking my coffee on the patio, I looked out to the pond beyond my screened lanai and felt myself become agitated. When did those palm fronds wilt and block my view of the water?

I love my home here in Florida, my quiet mornings watching the birds fly over the man- made pond in my country club community before it gets too hot outside. The sun slowly rises, promising another increasingly humid afternoon as the summer months approach. I enjoy listening to the trickle of my hot tub water cascade into the pool. All is good in this world.

But why haven’t the landscapers trimmed those trees?

When we moved to Florida four years ago, we gave away most of our yard work tools. The promise of paying HOA fees included landscaping around our yard. Hurray!

I had my share of mishaps landscaping the yard back in New York. The weeds grew like wild fire on the side of my house in the summer. After Mike died, I would attempt to control it with hedge clippers or 28″ loppers, but the weeds would always come back.

When the boys were around, I’d bribe them to clear out the overgrown weeds. After one son came down with a bad case of poison ivy and the other got stung by a wasp, it was time to look for help.

I noticed a neighbor had hired someone with a truck and trailer filled with power tools to do a spring clean up. What an idea, I thought! I ran across the street and asked the man in charge how much it would cost to clean up my yard. Worth it, I agreed and drove off to the ATM machine.

Those guys had my yard looking like a show place in no time at all. I was hooked on hiring help for the yard.

But last Tuesday morning, I didn’t want to wait for landscapers.

Pete had brought along one tool from New York. A manual pole saw to trim branches. That was a bit hard to use, so he replaced it with a cordless power pole saw used for trimming higher branches.

This was just what I needed.

But it was still in the box.

Turns out, it is pretty easy to assemble and the battery was already charged so no waiting necessary. I put on some gloves, sneakers, and sunglasses and headed to the back yard with my long handled pruner.

Between the back of my screen and the pond is about 30 feet of grass on a slight hill. Surrounding our screen are small bushes which the HOA does a decent job of trimming, then I also have a large Southern Live Oak tree and a cluster of three palm trees off to the right.

The palms were wilting toward the grass and turning brown. And after a closer look, the oak tree also had a few scraggly low branches that could use a good trim.

I found the power on button and pressed. It turned on the motor and easily cut through the first palm frond. This is fun, I thought. I did a few more and shifted to the other side of the trees.

That’s when I saw him.

It was a baby alligator, about 30 inches long. He was staring at me from the water at the edge of the pond. Was he hungry?

I carefully sawed through another branch, then looked back at my friend quickly. Was he going to come up and bite my leg? I had just heard a sad story about someone dying from an alligator in Florida so moving forward with caution was on my mind.

I continued my trimming, checking back after each branch fell. When I turned my back on the little guy, it was like playing Red Light, Green Light. Would he make a run for it? Do they charge humans?

Nope, he just kept staring.

I started to feel bad.

“I’m not your mother,” I called out.

He didn’t move.

I wasn’t ready to quit yet. If I could just remove those low branches from the Southern Live Oak tree, my water view would be really great. Keeping my eye on his head peeking from under the surface of the shoreline, I continued to saw away.

The problem with all this great clearing became suddenly apparent.

Someone had to bag up all these newly trimmed branches. Someone now had to bend over and pick up things on the ground. As I began to clean up my mess, I really hoped that this little guy wouldn’t spring for my fingers.

“Pete?” I called out.

No answer.

Suddenly I sensed movement. It was the baby alligator.

Was he going to slowly walk up and help me?

No, he just crawled out of the water, all 30 inches, walked a few feet, then entered back into the pond near the tall grass.

I kept my eyes on that spot where he disappeared the whole time as I painstakingly cut the branches even smaller to fit in the bag.

Bagging palm fronds and tree branches has recently been declared a new rule, no more leaving them on the side of the street for the landscapers to haul away.

By the time I finally dragged the last bag up to the curb, my little friend was no longer in sight.

The trees are now trimmed, my water view restored and I guess I made a new friend. All in all, another good day in Florida.

By the way this cordless pole saw is really good and easy to use. I give it 5 stars!