So…I missed the Rotary meeting on the 24th. They were working away at their Reverse Raffle and Silent Auction…as they have been for some time; get your tickets now. The array of donated items and services should make for spirited bidding and a good time for all. It’s a regular social event around these parts, starts off the holiday season and more holiday-minded folks are always welcome.
So why did I miss the meeting? The Amazing Amishman was working in my trees again. It was quite something to watch him climb up and stand on some spindly branch that I wouldn’t send a cat out on (And I have several who might volunteer) then lop off limbs of all sorts and descriptions–leafy, dead, gnarled, etc.–and let them either drop to the ground or be swung down on a rope. All the while he’s managing various belts and tools–including a chain saw which he sometimes wield with ONE HAND–and climbing around the trunk of the tree being dealt with using a belt that sort of ratchets him upward and a pair of spikes fastened at the knee and ankle and featuring a grip-point at about the instep of his foot…and a safety rope (didn’t look all that safe to me from my perspective on the ground). Wowzaa!
This is all going on in my side yard where a number of “junk” trees were about to go to that Big Wood Burner in the Sky…and in the back where some very mature trees needed to lose some weight (Don’t we all?), namely a selection of truly dead wood that was doing no one any good and possibly threatening the rhododendrons, poor babies. One dead limb had actually leaned against a large neighbor for so long that the healthy tree was starting to grow bark around the freeloader to hold it up; dead branch had to be pulled out of the notch it had created, even when it was cut off from its base. In addition, I needed a place to plant the newest addition, a young pawpaw bush that’s gone in as a companion to the one which did really well this summer. They’re apparently not able to produce fruit unless there are at least two of them within pollinating distance of one another…and the whole purpose of planting fruit trees is–wait for it–to get fruit, right? “Way Down Yonder in the Pawpaw Patch” will now be on the east side of the house. Actually, I have no idea at all what pawpaws taste like; this is just another “go native” effort in landscaping. I might try for a Rattlesnake Master or Queen of the Prairie next, now that there’s so much sunlight available. Of course, what I might really get with the newly-opened space is more poison ivy. It nearly always homes in on edge spaces like this…and hardly anything stops it.
Additionally, I made an effort to get the hatches battened down for winter(Boy, aren’t we glad we’re not in eastern Pennsylvania or anywhere along the eastern seaboard). Took the cushions off the front and back porch furniture, stashed chairs and cushions in the basement. Put the kitty condos on the front porch (They’re worm boxes from Garrettsville Hardware; the worms weren’t using them now that they’re in some fish gullet somewhere), attached the heating pads for those(No cool kitties around here). Rounded up the lawn furniture and swept the deck. Planted one lone Jack-in-the-Pulpit bulb. This is as ready as I’m going to get.
As for what we’re going to get, who are you going to believe, some nice old farmer from Vermont or the Accu-Weather people? If so far is any indication, it could be a toss-up. The old guy was saying early, mild and moist, with a bear of a February. Officialdom says wicked cold and wet and/or snowy. We’ve had near-record rainfall and an early nor-easter. How long is this going to go on? Hang on to your hats–also earmuffs, long johns, boots and woolies–it could be a wild one!
