Tree Stuff

Nathaniel and Tucker

My dear husband took on this dead tree last weekend.  It was close to the house and shedding limbs at a frightening pace.  I stood in the air conditioning and watched him hold the chainsaw over his head to cut the tree while he balanced on a ladder.   It was really hot and humid, and I worried that he was going to get heat stroke.  

Before he ever got the chainsaw out, he had planned how he would make each cut.  Some cuts required tying the branch with a rope to pull it away from the house.  I worried a lot, as usual, but everything went according to his plan.  My nephew Tucker is staying with us until school starts later this month.  He helped Herb as needed; then when Nathaniel came home from college, he and Tucker picked up all the wood.  They work well together.  It's clear Nathaniel enjoys having a "little brother".

Sunshine wasted no time in claiming the new real estate.

Last year we didn't get any pecans because of the drought.  This year the limbs are so heavy with nuts that they are sagging under the weight.  Several have broken off.  I guess that means that we should have had them pruned last fall.  Oh, well.  Hopefully we won't be visited by any hurricanes this summer, and the rest of the branches can pretend that they are willows and bend.

I feel like this year I am getting an intimate knowledge of our trees, mostly because I have hugged so many as I tie Fiona and Ferdie to them.  I have to rotate them so that they get fresh grass. The menfolk are still putting in posts for our peripheral fence.  Maybe by the end of the month it will be finished.  It will be heavenly!

  I no longer tie Ferdie in the back yard.  We've had two too many broken PVC water pipes from his insatiable head scratching.  I tried tying him close to the back of the house one night.  I thought he couldn't cause any trouble because I made sure he couldn't reach any pipes.  When I went to bed he was asleep on the ground next  to the dogs by the back door.  They looked really cute.  I wish I had gotten a picture!  But in the morning, the memory of their cuteness faded fast as I found my potted rose bush completely unpotted with most of the leaves gone.  Not a bit of soil clung to the roots.  I think Ferdie must have grabbed it in his teeth and shaken it.  Apparently he has a consuming interest in gardening.  I soon discovered he had also pruned the top of my Satsuma tree.  Plus he peed three giant puddles on the sidewalk and pooped two times as well.  Herb reports that Ferdie can pee five minutes at a time.  I believe it after seeing the size of those puddles.  I can't keep him in the chain link fence anymore because he busted the bottom of it and now just slides out underneath within minutes of being put in there.  Luckily Fiona doesn't do that.  She just starts bellowing at the crack of dawn until I take her out.

Tonight, as I led Ferdie out in the front yard by the light of a glowing full moon, we passed by one of our Crepe Myrtles, and I realized for the first time that it was awash with luscious deep pink blossoms.  I think the moonlight made it especially pretty.  Ferdie didn't seem to notice it.  He was too busy reacquainting himself with the bird feeder post.  It's his secret friend.  He butts his head against it and leaps in the air and butts it again.  Hopefully, it will still be standing in the morning.