Flora

Still no sign of spring.  It's not warm at all.  The geraniums are sulking.  It's supposed to go back down in the 30's at night; it's not freezing, but temps that cold at night don't let it warm up a lot during the day.  I would really like for it to be warmer.  Winter was interesting, but it's time for it to go now.

Last Friday there was entertainment in the cul de sac.  We do not back up to the bluff and the attendant very large trees that grow there.  I'm pretty happy about that, pine needles on the roof are bad; so are dying conifers that harbor carpenter ants.  One of the guys in the neighborhood had planned to take out two trees too close to his house and wind sail some others.  If the branches are too close together, and the trees are exposed to high wind, the tree may fall.  So, they take branches out of the trees that are threatening to fall so the air movement through the tree is not hampered.  Anyway, they're still here because a third tree has to come down, it's full of carpenter ants, which means the tree is dying.  There is a lot of hardware involved.  Cranes and chipper shredders.

This is how the guy that cuts sections of the tree gets to where he is working.  He's in a harness, with his chainsaw dangling.  He's rigged like you would be if rappelling, he fast roped down once and stopped just before the tip of the chainsaw hit the road.

He has made his first cut to remove the top of the tree.

Here is a different section of tree coming out.

Now tree is being fed into the chipper shredder.

Tree removal is about $1,000 per tree.  Having seen the equipment required, I can understand why.  After they finished here, they went up the road that goes to the water tower and continued working from the back side of the house.

The back yard is giving us fits.  There is a row of arborvitae that used to be a screen between us and the neighbors.  Since we've been here we've taken out two of them using a Japanese pruning saw and a reciprocating saw, which was very difficult.  One must also work around the giant decorative boulders.  Two more of them are near death, so they will have to be taken out as well.  I think it's pointless to replace them, as they have made their unhappiness known by dying, and the question becomes what to put there.  The question is also how to we get the root balls out.  We're not strong enough to do it.  My neighbor suggested a chain and a pickup truck.  Fences are not permitted, although I might do it and ask forgiveness later, but it would have to be 10 feet tall due to the sloping grade of the yard.  We may have to outsource this labor, one can only imagine how much this will cost.  Our neighbor used to be an arborist, I'm going to ask him to tell us what to buy.  You can read more on arborvitae hatred here.

We recently learned that this tree belongs to us.  I thought it was the neighbor's on the other side, but I was mistaken.  It's kind of pretty, except for the shedding leaves in the fall part.  I am told that it's a pear tree.

In closing, I have these words of wisdom for us.

“Socialism is a scare word they've hurled at every advance the people have made. Socialism is what they called public power, social security, deposit insurance, and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for anything that helps all people.” —Harry Truman, 1952