The giant Hell-Thorn tree that was threatening to engulf the house and curse the land two years ago, has been slowly dissected when the mood takes me. It took weeks of effort just to get it back to the stage where it was just huge and spiky.

I can’t find a picture of when it was almost blocking the entrance to the house and covering a large section of the roof, so this photo is from a few months ago. Photos of the point in time where I first started work are a bit sparse, due to the whole trauma and grief thing making it all a bit of a blur.

Obviously I haven’t been working on removing the tree that much as there is so much else to do, but I like to give it a wack as I go past. Well maybe more than an occasional wack.

I have set fire to it, dug out almost a meter of soil filled with roots and rocks. I have poisoned it with various chemicals and old farmers magic potions. I have attacked it with chainsaws, reciprocating saws, axes and I have pee’d on it repeatedly… and yet it is still hanging in there.

Some people take a smoko, I go and take a few wacks of the hell-thorn. It’s strange what can become a cathartic little ritual.