The ‘contorted birch’ demised a season ago, and did not come back. It was the centerpiece tree of our front yard.
Now, meanwhile, we decided to use a licensed spraying company for our gravel paths rather than kill ourselves trying to weed it all.
This means we had to scramble to get all the accumulated junk of winter AND the pond disaster picked up and the paths raked, the front likewise picked up and waked, dandelions removed in all the flower beds to which we are adding pre-emergent on our own—and having done all that in a few hours, aching in every bone, we plunked ourselves down in the living room while the spray guys were doing the work…
At which point I thought: two healthy guys who do outdoor work and may want to do some tree work for extra…So Jane asked if they could pull the dead birch and plant a tree. Oh, indeed. They recommended where to go to buy same (biggest supplier in the PNW [pacific northwest] and a good lot, too. And they’ll pick it up and plant it. So we decided to change species, birch having not liked the variable water levels next the water feature (seasonal). We went for a full-sized Japanese Maple, Emperor One. They don’t like sun that much, but our other Japanese maples are doing well, and we do have some shade during part of the day, thanks to the Fat Albert blue spruce and the towering firs or hemlocks or whatever they are. So we decided to risk it. The new tree is already an inch and a half thick, pushing two, and about 8 feet tall, though willowy. It’ll shade the water feature. And its thin leaves won’t cause much cleanup.
And we don’t have to pull the birch or plant this one.
The front flower bed is not that big. I could have forked and weeded it (after I bought a fork) myself if I’d paced myself. Pay a Hispanic couple $30 to do it for me? In a New York minute.
I’m getting a second opinion on treatment options for my CLL from a doctor in the real world (not with the VA) and I go see him this Thurs. Good thing too. My symptoms are progressing at a rather sobering rate. My mom has said she’ll help me pay for what Medicare doesn’t, as the only supplemental insurance I have is the VA, and cancer ain’t cheap. I may be buying a wig. . .
Very sorry to hear that WOL.
Most felicitous luck.
Only one thing to do when life gets sobering: drink!
(Not a long term or actually helpful strategy, unfortunately.)
PS to CJ: love the ability to correct, though would still like to preview. Thank you!
Oh, good luck, Wol! Glad your Mom is about and able to help a bit too. Keep us posted. We’ll be thinking and crossing our fingers for you!
Thank Chuck, who is working mysteriously behind the curtain.
As someone with a black thumb – I have been killing houseplants for years, I wish the new tree good luck. I tend to prefer trees to just grass.
Things are gradually warming up here in New Hampshire.
JOnathan
Paying strong, experienced guys to do that for you, way to go. Having a good tree again, very nice, and it really improves the yard. Best Wishes!
I have one, maybe two, appointments this week upcoming, plus (I hope) another foray to the storage space to whittle down whatever I can and rescue priority items. But the latter is not as likely, as there’s too much sorting still to do.
Next week, I likely get one tooth extracted, leaving the rest until a few months down the road, with the possibility of insurance by then. This week, I hope to get the referral ofr the retinal specialist, so I can proceed toward cataract surgery. However, that is likely to be out of pocket, from savings after the sale of my home. I really, really want the cataract surgery, and so I hope this will be AOK with the specialist, then back to the eye doctor. So the rest of April and through midMay or through June are going to be busy-busy, but a good kind of busy.
The cataract on my right (non-dominant) eye was so thick in 2005, the opthalmalogist couldn’t get a good reading with his sonic pen. My uncorrected vision at that point was 20/200 (actually worse than that). After the surgery, it was at 20/50, and when the left eye cataract began to assert itself, I could actually see better out of my right eye than my dominant left eye. As it was, I ended up losing my night-driving privileges because the cataract caused triple-images. Once it was removed, the surgeon put in a replacement implant that brought my vision to 20/20 in the left eye. I hope your doctor can give you a much better “outlook” with the surgery.
WOL, best of luck.
We had a big ol’ gumbo last night; I had to separate it into 2 pans, the first with the chicken and sausage and ham for people with gout and people who couldn’t eat/ didn’t like seafood, then the second pan had the crawfish, crab, and shrimp added. Sent home some leftovers with people. Remarkable how much work, mess and shell results in a piece of crawfish meat the size of my pinky tip. The crayfish came from, of all places, Wal*mart!
Will probably end up removing a couple of the small palms in my back yard. They are growing up into the canopy of my neighbor’s tree and getting their crowns snarled in the branches. Still slowly whittling down the pile of plumeria branches, this will be green waste can #3 full. Once I get them out of the way, I can plant out my Gros Michel banana tree and my cacao tree.
I remember a show on PBS where they said that lobster shell would be great for the compost pile. They said it should be cleaned, as in no butter, but they decompose very quickly and add calcium to the soil.
Rats! Wish I’d known that earlier, as I decided putting them in the trash bin was preferable to having them composted. Still, do you really want fish trash merrily drawing flies to your heap?
A cacao tree– lucky you (and your climate)!
I’m gonna have to get off dead center and prep that corner of the yard sooner rather than later. The banana tree is rapidly outstripping the bucket I put it in (it started as a shoot with a leaf and a half, now it’s approaching 18″ tall and spreading). The cacao isn’t there yet, but I see new leaves forming, so planting it out would probably be a good thing.
a find for anybody on low-carb, btw: Classico Alfredo sauce, which looks and tastes as if it should be loaded. Using it as a sauce adds a slightly less aggressive flavor than sour cream. And it does very nicely with meatballs—add curry powder, and you get curried meatballs, which for the pasta-deprived, is very nice.
Peanut butter cut with chicken stock and augmented with a little red chili flake, used to ‘finish cook’ chicken (we cook chicken with strips of bell pepper) makes a very nice dish, too.
And I am down 7 pounds, and Jane is also losing. Dinner is often a main course of something low carb accompanied by a heckuva serving of cauliflower or green beans, for the volume.
That gumbo and CJ’s two recipes sure sound good. Hmm, I’m not sure which Alfredo sauce brand I bought, could be Classico Alfredo. But alas, no meatballs until next grocery trip.
I was inspired to get fish sticks for the Doctor Who series 10 and Class premieres, and sure enjoyed them. Rather than custard, there was pudding. I did not, however, try dipping. Hah, possibly next weekend with another batch. And possibly custard. 😉 Loved the Doctor Who and thought Class was a solid start.
The problem tooth is doing much better, still to be extracted, likely next week. I’m still supposed to hear back from the eye doctor for a referral tomorrow or this week.
@Joe Have you seen that they’ve discovered wax worms have enzymes that will digest/break down polyethylene, one of our nasty, “non-biodegradable”, long term pollutants?