I Love that Tree...Let's Kill it !

This past weekend we finally dismantled the final, dead, piece of the Rhododendron tree in our side yard. This was the tree that flowered in all its glory for 2 weeks a year, as a huge living impressionist painting, a staple of our lives.

Recently, it was just a tree, and we noticed its declining color and health matter-of- factly, coldly viewing it as a nuisance, an obstacle to the spreader each time I fertilized. But I remember when.....

Originally our side yard was such an overgrown wilderness, that we had no idea that the tree existed. After we blazed a trail with our machetes, chain saws and Miller High Life, using more chutzbah than expertise, this pink and white giant dominated the landscape. We used the lower branch as a swing for Kris and Kaila, as endless numbers of film store developed pictures can attest. When Kris and Kaila got older, they used it as a swing for the younger  neighborhood kids, and the tree's legacy grew.

Over the past 10 years,  more and more of the tree died, but since the girls were out of the house, it carried little emotional meaning. This past weekend, the final death march was performed.

The tree came down quite easily, as the branches and trunk were brittle, void of life as the saw buzzed through  its minor girth,  my shaking arms offering more resistance than the tree itself. After much ado about cutting and cracking and creaking and pulling,  the site of so many years of life, laughter, joy, remembrance,  and nostalgia, consisted of a large hole, and a somewhat resistant root. I, in the role of executioner, and wielding an ax long dormant in our shed, was ready.

But alas, this was a labor of love, like burying an old friend. Ironically, this friend was not being interred in the earth, but freed from it. The final result was a perfectly neat, fairly level circle of grass and top soil, ready to sprout and be green, with no sign of the beautiful, living treasure that enriched our lives and was a unique part of our early family.

As we learn each Spring, and with the passing of loved ones, life moves on, and we get back to our normal routine, our regular loves, fears and passions. Those no longer with us will forever inspire us, guide us, define us, comfort us, but we march forth to the next challenge, living, creating and embracing life. That's just what humans do.

Keep the faith and spread the love y'all !

The Car Wash and the Horror it Brings

Linda and I went to the car wash the other day for the "early bird special", as we are seniors and have been conditioned by our visits to AZ. As the car rolled through the machinery of the car wash, on the propelling rails, through the bands and the brushes and the sprays, I came to a startling realization: A person from an indigenous, isolated tribe in Borneo would view this futuristic, buzzing metal machine as a god or monster as it rolled through this droning, mechanized tube.

How silly, we would all think, that this primitive group of leaf wearing hut dwellers would be mesmerized and horrified  by something we take for granted. This same tribe of hunter/gatherers from an era past, probably eat flying beetles the size of a small bird that, no doubt, would scare the bejeezus out of all of us. Most likely they consider them gods, raise them as pets, and consume them in ritual acts for religious and nutritional purposes. Pick your poison, pick your horror.

Speaking of sheer terror, it certainly has been humid, and boy am I afraid of mildew. Yep, that's what magically materializes in the basement when it is hot and muggy and you don't turn on the air conditioner, dehumidifier, or nuclear reactor imported from Iran. I am starting to understand why the Borneo tribe opted out of the suburbs.

Basil Update: 2 lovely basil plants are in, collecting sun and sharing their earth with Tomatoes (2) and Jalapeno and Parsley. More plants to come. The grass is healthy, and nurturing the collection of infant seeds we have planted, overseen by the Cypress, that we are coaxing toward health and greenery.

As my Borneo brothers say, Y'all keep the faith !