Day 35

Dec. 10, 2017
Woke up at 5am.
I ran to the hardware store in the morning to grab a new hole bore bit for my drill. So I can finish installing all of the lag bolts that are holding up the foundation to the post and piers. Then started to finally close up the foundation. While I did this Hank and his tree trimmer buddy came by and helped me get rid of a large tree that was
threatening the neighbor’s house. (I feel like I should give you a little bit of a backstory in case you might have forgotten about this little arrangement.) A couple of weeks ago when Hank convinced me to go and buy a better chainsaw he was so kind as to offer up his services in exchange for said equipment. Seeing how I would not need one once all the trees had been cleared I thought “what the heck”, it will cost me less in the end anyway as he only works about 1 hour out of his normal four-hour minimum. So this way I will be getting off a little cheaper. Or so I thought. Now comes today. Hank and his mate come by to cut down a couple of the rather large trees that posed a threat to our neighbors home and fenceline. HIs buddy also made sure and poisoned the ones he cut down so they wouldn’t grow back. I really appreciated him doing that as this will save me a lot of work down the road. I kind of feel like I should give the saw to his mate instead of Hank as his friend seems to be doing all of the hard work and Hank just makes excuses as to why can’t continue working.

Once they had finished and his buddy left, I told Hank about the trees in the back of the property that need to be eliminated as well. Then comes the best part of my entire trip here. Hank tells me that he feels like he has done more than enough to earn my chainsaw and he had to spend a $100 on calling his buddy out to come to help him with the trees.  I informed him that this was his decision and had nothing to do with our arrangement.  By the way, I found out later in the conversation that it was $100 worth in weed and not exactly cash that he spent. In the end, I chose to take the higher route and just walked away from the conversation. I know there are a million things I should have said and done at that moment, but this was the only option that would leave him standing in the end. I have had more than enough of my crappy neighbor, but I know I have to play nice as I will be gone for I don’t know how long, and he knows I won’t be home as well.

Trust me once my family and I arrive at the island and we are in our home to keep an eye on it, he is not allowed to step one foot on our property. I will definitely see to that. The least the bastard could have done was let me use my own chainsaw so I can finish cutting the rest of the trees down myself. He has borrowed it since the day I bought it and seems to now own the freaking thing. So I have never even started the damn thing. But no, he offered to let me hire him to cut down the rest of my trees at his usual 4-hour minimum rate. WITH MY OWN CHAINSAW!  This was the straw that broke the camels back. Dude is dead to me. I will play nice to save face while I’m here, but nothing he does or says will ever be of any concern of mine.