Hiking has been on the backburner of late, more due to time constraints than lack of interest. But I still walk every day so at least I get in an hour (or more) of intensive exercise to keep my heart healthy. However the advent of early sunsets is impeding on walking. I almost always walk in the morning but when we are watching our two grandkids Monday and Tuesday, there is just not enough time in the morning to walk so I try to get out in the evening. But if I am not out the door by 6pm I will end up finishing in the dark, and that is something I prefer not to do; poor lighting, people tired from work and trying to get home in a hurry, along with narrow (or non-existent) shoulders make walking in the dark a poor choice.

Since starting this post, I’ve managed to get out for a hike, which is always fantastic, but have had a ton of other things going on to occupy my time. Of course, we have begun watching two of our grandchildren two days a week and that is always a pleasure; they are a lot of fun and it is nice to give them the time to learn with us, just as we were able to do for our older three grandchildren. But it is definitely an investment of time so not much else happens on those two days – plus it is really tiring! And we are back in full-fledged movie mode, going to the theater one day every week and then out to eat. So that day each week is pretty much consumed as well. And we have the two grandkids over on Saturdays for a few hours as well, but it isn’t a lot so I can still get some other things done as well.

That leaves three days a week without any regular time commitments. I use Fridays for grocery shopping and then any other things that we may want or need to do. The other two days are for working around the yard and for hiking; I try to hike one day a week but would prefer to hike two days a week; it just doesn’t happen often, and that’s OK.

I had hoped – planned – to hike this past Sunday, but ended up deciding that instead, I would devote the day to a house repair I’d been putting off. I don’t know why, but our gutters just have never functioned well; on heavy rains they fail to handle the volume and end up overflowing resulting in a curtain of water across the whole length of the gutter. Yes, clogs can impede their ability to drain properly but even when clean and free, they just don’t perform their intended use. And when this happens the water runs behind the gutter as well, between the fascia and the gutter, and with the water also comes dirt and debris which ends up getting trapped up against the fascia. Since it is between the two surfaces, it never really gets air and takes forever to dry out. And wet muck in a dark place will always eventually lead to rot. And that is what I had on the front gutter run.

I had been putting the job off for a while. Two years ago I did this same job on the northern third of the front of the house and I ended up leaving the gutter off. After two full cycles of seasonal weather, I have not noticed any detrimental effect of not having a gutter on that stretch of the house. I knew I had at least one area of fascia that was rotted enough that it would need to be replaced, but I was unsure about the rest of it.

Sunday I decided to tackle the job. At the start, my intent was to leave the gutter up. At over 40’, this gutter was twice as long as the one two years ago and I knew that I could probably not get it off and back on again without damaging it (and likely myself). The rotted area was about 15’ in from the end so I figured I could remove about 20’ of gutter and support/suspend it safely enough so as not to damage it while still having access to be able to perform the repair.

I managed to cut out a roughly 3’ long piece of rotted wood and replaced it with a piece of PVC trim board. PVC trim will never rot or warp or split or pretty much anything else bad. It is unpleasant to work with as cutting it generates all kinds of plasticky dust and shavings – white ones at that. And it sticks like a fine powder all over the saw. So clean up is a pain and I have to admit I have some health concerns from the dust as well. But it is the right choice in my mind.

I had the end of the gutter literally hanging with a rope thrown over the roof and tied off and as I manipulated the gutter, it became evident that there were other areas still under the gutter that looked suspicious for rot. I thought about it for a little while and recognized that if I put everything back once I was done, I’d be looking at the exact same problem all over again in the next five to ten years; it was inevitable given the gutters I currently had installed. So off came the whole 40’ gutter. And ultimately, off it stayed.

Now, throughout the course of this day, I had been stung twice by yellowjackets – not a big deal, it happens, especially in the Fall when they get a bit aggressive. One got me on my left upper arm and the other on my right ankle. But it was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and aggravating a busy bee who felt the need to retaliate.  That would soon change.

I had the new material installed and all areas sanded and repaired over the entire 40’ section of fascia, and I had one full coat of paint on it. I cleaned up and put some things away as the first coat was drying and then began the second coat. I was almost halfway done when I got to the front door – always a tricky area. I set the ladder down in a section of the garden right next to the door and climbed up to continue painting. And that’s when they rose up.

Apparently I set the ladder leg right on a yellowjacket nest. And they didn’t like it; at all. They attacked en masse, since I was up a ladder and they were down in the ground, the went after the first thing they came to: my legs. I leapt off, brush in one hand and bucket of paint in the other, in a vain attempt to flee. There is no fleeing a swarm of angry yellowjackets, a truth a learned on this day.

I ran to try to get some separation from the swarm but at the same time I was trying to set down the bucket of paint without spilling it all over the lawn, a task which I did accomplish despite the intensity of their attack. With my right hand now free, I began flailing – quite wildly and forcefully – at my knee with my right hand. I also continued to sort of run, still trying to obtain separation.

I will pause here to insert a relevant fact; I always carry a knife. It is extremely rare for me not to have one. When I wear jeans, it is in my rear pocket and when I wear shorts it is in the thigh pocket – on my right side. It is a folding knife, not automatic and no thumb stud to open; it requires a specific action on a raised part of the blade that essentially flips the blade open. Usually I use my index finger nail to grab one of the grooves in it to flip it open, but it takes some effort to do so.

Coincidentally, my wife had shown up out front at almost the exact moment this all began, checking up on my progress. Her timing was uncanny as she arrived at the exact moment I was leaping from the ladder and witnessed the whole thing (extremely confused at first until she spotted the angry bees swirling all about me). I got to her, mostly bee free at this point, and we both simultaneously noticed a huge amount of blood on my right knee.

I don’t know who was more freaked out by it because I felt nothing except the rapidly growing burn of multiple bee stings on my knee, but of course, stings do not bleed. At that point we figured out that the blood on my knee and leg was coming from my right hand. A quick look revealed blood quite literally pouring out of my wrist.

I had left a roll of paper towels in the bed of my truck so we ran over to it and tore off a bunch to cover the wound. At this point, I hadn’t a single clue why I was bleeding; my wrist didn’t hurt and I did not recall banging it of hitting it at all during my bee-flee event. I actually walked back into the front yard to look around and try to figure out what the hell had happened to me but saw nothing that made any sense, so we headed inside to bandage it up.

Once inside I asked my wife to grab some gauze so we could wrap it up as I was already leaking through the paper towels wadded up on my wrist. As she went to take another look she pointed to my thigh and said “look”. I glanced down and there was half my knife blade sticking through the fabric of my shorts pocket.

Apparently my wild flailing, I had somehow manipulated the knife inside my pocket, causing it to open at about a 45-degrees open. And without a doubt, that was exactly what had penetrated my wrist during the flailing. Looking at the blade, it appeared that it had gone into my wrist about half an inch or slightly more. This was supported by the length of the wound, which was just right for about that same distance back from the tip of the blade.

Talk about some Final Destination craziness!!

We wrapped it tightly and I went back out to put everything away. The bees were still extremely angry and a sizeable swarm was still swirling about my ladder so any more painting was out of the question. Plus the multiple stings on my knee were really beginning to annoy me so it was time to quit for the day.

Considering the depth and location of the wound, I am quite lucky. I believe I nicked an artery due to the huge amount of blood and the fact that it kept up like that for almost three full days. I went to change the bandage Monday night and as soon as I removed the pad the blood began pouring out with as much volume as the day before. In fact it was still bleeding Tuesday night which was 48-hours later. But things settled down by Wednesday night and by Thursday it had completely stopped leaking. All fingers are working but with discomfort so I likely did some damage to a tendon or ligament. Despite this, I still feel that I dodged a bullet: this was an extremely sharp needle point knife and was forced into my wrist with great momentum

It is now more than three weeks after the “stabbing” and things are mostly good with it. I no longer have any discomfort moving my fingers and I am once again able to do push-ups without pain. I still have a small hematoma at the entry site – it was the size of a grape but has now shrunk to about the size of a pea and is still shrinking.

This all goes to show that you can never predict how a simple job can go bad in a moment’s notice. I am extremely comfortable on ladders and had no issues with that part of the job: no falls or anything like that which one would think to be the greatest hazard of it all. Bees might have been predictable as a hazard but I’ve worked in this yard for over 30 years and have never stirred up a swarm like that! And as to knife, I have never had a friction folding knife open in my pocket, ever. And this one in particular can be a tricky one to open; I am still astounded that my flailing somehow caused it to open!