Mark My Words

The phone rang early this morning. Prissy.

"What's going on over there?"

"Over where?"

"Can't you see? At your neighbor's."

Prissy meant the Leaf Lady. I rolled my eyes. Prissy must be related to Gladys Kravitz.

"I don't watch what's going on over there."

"What are they doing?"

I realized this would go on for quite some time if I didn't answer to her satisfaction. I opened up the door and from the front porch I saw a tree service truck.

"She must be having the trees that came down during the storm taken care of."

"Can't she wait until Spring?"

I almost suggested to Prissy to call The Leafy Lady to ask her as The Leafy Lady does not confide in me.

We swapped some Leaf bashing. I had moved back to the kitchen and from the kitchen window I saw the tree service guy snow blowing a path. Yup, the Leaf Lady is definitely reta...missing a few tines on her rake. Twenty degrees Fahrenheit outside with a foot of snow on the ground and she's having trees removed.

Prissy hung up and I went about my business.

Around lunch time, I looked out the window to see what progress the tree guys had made to remove the pine branches. They were not working on the dead pine. I shouldn't have been surprised to see the tree guy sawing the limbs off of a viable, young tree. Sad. Another prefectly good tree murdered. By tree standards this tree is young not more than fifty years old.

On the way to pick up The Young One as I was getting into my car, the tree service guy gave me a cheery wave. I hope he's making good scratch on this job.

When we got home, a second tree had been delimbed and a third tree was tagged. These were not dead or dying trees. These were not trees that needed to be euthanized. These were vigorous trees.

This one woman is slowly denuding the forest that surrounds us. And with all tree life removed from her property, the next time she whines all my leaves are in her yard, I'll say "You're absolutely right!"

Mark my words. Some day the Ents will be coming to seek justice for the trees The Leafy Lady has murdered. It will be a terrible sight. I hope I live to see the day.

Needled

A couple of weeks after the December ice storm, we had some warmer temperatures and rain. Most of the snow was gone. I asked Lambie if her husband could come and remove the tree that had fallen in The Leaf Lady's yard. Since they heat their home by woodstove, they were welcome to the wood.

It snowed the night before they were supposed to come. I should have realized a little snow wouldn't keep these hardy Yankees away. Yankees as in those who can trace their lineage back to the Pilgrims that came over on the Mayflower.

Though the tree was large by my standards, it was not large by Lambie's DH. He didn't need help hauling logs to his truck. Lambie and I had a nice visit, a cup of tea and lovely pumpkin muffins Lambie made while her DH worked.

From time to time we watched his progress. He cut the tree and removed the lengths to my property, where he cut the wood into 4ft. logs. Then he carted the logs to his truck. In less than an hour he was done.

I received an email a day or two later from Lambie. DH wanted me to tell you, he was very careful not to harm a needle of The Leaf Lady's pine tree that had fallen in her yard.