We were doing some yard work the other day trying to clear away places to plant our new fruit trees. Hacking, slashing and cutting down trees and vines.

I am Standing Under the Area to be Cleared

Well we came upon a tree that had a termite nest in it. Our attention instantly went to the termites.

OMG TERMITES!!!

We have decided that termites are undesirable due to the big wood house we have. While we haven’t seen any evidence of termites in the wood of the house, we don’t want to. We rather quickly decided that we should get rid of this nest ASAP. So we did what we heard the locals do and set it on fire. The tree was covered in vines that were attracting bees so the smoke from the fire was actually helpful in ridding the tree of the foraging bees as well.

Now I know what you’re thinking.  What did they set on fire?!?!

The Wood House.  It’s gone.

No, no just kidding.  After the fire went out and the nest had burned, I used my saw arm, which is getting stronger every day, and started cutting on the tree. I can down a small tree in around 10-15 minutes now which is a pretty big improvement. Because it was covered in vines with bees all over it we didn’t even know what kind of tree it was. We figured it was another weed/termite attracting tree. Especially since it had a termite nest in it.

The tree fell as expected and then we noticed the leaves…..

It. Was. An. Avocado. Tree! Probably 15-20years old. Ahh man! That sucks!

A humongous “Oops!”

We are still pretty bummed about that. We reacted too quickly to the termites and the damage they had done, which could have been dealt with and was nothing even close to the damage we did. We learned a hard lesson and decided to go see a movie in Mayaguez to get our minds off it. I am sure we will make many more mistakes. It sucks, but that’s how we learn.