A little Karma comes my way, I follow up with a way overdue yard project, and my truck almost kills me.

What seems like a long time ago I had made the decision to rip my deck apart and get rid of it. It was somewhere in the area of 15 years old, and rotting. There were spots on it when you walked that would bend and sink, and the final straw was when a friend walked on it and it broke. Here is a reminder of what that project looked like when finished.That mess has been sitting on my side yard for nearly a year. I admit it, procrastination is one of my finer talents. In fact, I believe I have perfected the art. I could teach classes on it. The bad part about this: it rains a lot a Humboldt. Average rainfall here is more than Seattle, and that's saying something. Top that off with the fact that this mess sits under a rather unruly cherry tree and after a long period of time you have a horrendous mess.

The other day I came home and found that this portion of the mess had been removed. One f the biggest reasons I had not gotten around to it was my lack of a chain saw (which would have made fairly quick work of the project). My friend Cody, however, probably has about 8 of them. So he came by on his day off and simply tore it up and removed it.
Perhaps this was a bit of good Karma, coming my way. After all, we had recently performed a small service project for a couple of stubborn beavers. Perhaps the Karma train came rolling around and found its way into my backyard.
So now, feeling the pangs of guilt at what my friend had done for me, I decided it was time to finish the job.
So at noon today I started cleaning, and it was a mess. Along with the leaves were a massive pile of bush trimmings. In the end I prevailed, and the mess is now clean.

Ahh, the satisfaction of a job well done. It wasn't, though, a job done without mishap. Allow me to elaborate.
I had just finished my second trip to the dump. I was coming home, feeling particularly proud of myself for actually getting something done around the yard on my day off. I was thinking the truck was rather dirty, and with all this new found space in the side yard I could pull my truck in and give it a quick wash. I pulled up, put it in to park, hopped out and opened the gate. I got back and started to pull forward. I realized, then, I had left the hose right in the way and it looked as though I would crush the nozzle under the front, driver's side tire.
(This is where Things go a little crazy)
I pressed the brake pedal down, put the truck in reverse, and hopped out.
Yep, your reading that right, I put the truck in reverse. For those of you who are die hard manual transmission fans, please take note that reverse and park are right next to each other. And if one is not paying attention, its easy to go from drive to reverse, thinking its in park.
I actually got all the way out of the truck when I realized it was moving backwards towards me. And it was turning, since the wheels were still turned as I was moving into the backyard. So I was sort of trapped behind the door, which was still open, as it was threatening to mow me over. I started backing as quick as I could, and shouted a few expletives. I then dove into the cab, as that was the only safe place for me to go. I first tried to hit the gear shift, however it doesn't want to go into park without the brake being depressed. Know I was quickly running out of time, my neighbors fence had to be quickly approaching, I started stabbing for the brake with my foot.
Here, as I saw my foot stabbing for the brake pedal, I found myself really, really hoping I didn't hit the gas be mistake. That would have been disastrous. Luck was with me today, and I managed to hit brake. I took a deep breath and put the truck into park. I got out and saw that I had about 6 inches before I ran into the neighbors fence and yard.
Lucky. Just plain lucky. But I lived, nothing was damaged. And it took about 40 minutes for my legs to stop shaking.