January 3rd, 2022 | There are two dangers inherent in trimming brush, and at the moment I am confronting both of them. The first is physical fatigue, the strains and overuse injuries stemming from bending too much from the back, from swinging too much with the wrist. The second is tedium, a side effect of bending and sweeping for hours in silence with little more than a stiff breeze and the chance of autumn rain for company. The first I mitigate by bending from the knees, using my core, drinking water. For the second, I attempt to create meaning out of monotony. I reach out with the loppers, clip a beech limb, bend to collect it from the ground, toss it into the undergrowth. Reach, clip, bend, toss. The motions build upon each other like waves, or maybe better, like tree rings, or the seasons that etch them into the cross section of each young tree I cut.