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Okay, story time @MidwestVetPath @rovingpencil - my embarrassing miscalculation as a human counterweight. When I moved from Dallas, TX to South Florida I took my small Ficus plant that had been 3 feet tall and in a pot in my TX bedroom for 10 years and planted it in my FL yard,
Within a few years it had become a good 25-30 tall monster. I knew it needed to be taken down. It still seemed rather skinny for a tree but I could tell it was a problem and I felt confident I could handle it with my saw. I stood on the 6ft tall wall and began cutting it.
I had a strategy, I would cut it and then when it snapped just slide it down the outside atrium wall into the outer yard and then take it down section at a time. It all went smoothly-until it didn't. I sawed with my hand saw and took my time then it made the anticipated crack.
I grabbed the tree trunk as the foliage began to slide into the roof and I pulled to force it back when suddenly, that damned tree just snatched me off the wall and launched me up into the air at what felt like 40MPH. I held on and shot straight up into the air looking down I
could see the top of my neighbor's pool enclosure and then it dawned on me, "This is not what I had anticipated" and to my horror the cracking sound had caused my neighbors nextdoor and across the street to see what was happening and witness my lunacy. I was about 25 ft in the-
air, hanging from from the tree branches and just as I thought, "now what" - what began to happen very quickly. Gravity reminded me, I was not its bitch and it was about to jack me up. I began to plummet back down and I threw the saw in one direction - the clippers in the other
Kicked away from the wall and landed in the neighbors hedge. It was a wonder I hadn't died. I was bruised and scratched and the impact knocked the breath out of me, but I jumped up and did a quick self inventory and then proceeded to start the clean up to try and keep my
humiliation to a minimum. That did not work, 15+ years later the neighbors still talk about the day I was catapulted into the hedges. But I bagged 18 bags of ficus foliage and limbs only to then discover the heirloom diamond ring that had been handed down in my family since the
1840s was missing the large center diamond. I looked all through the area and emptied and searched all 18 bags and 16 years later that diamond has still not been found. I was an inefficient and costly counterweight.
