When a Yard Needs A New Look

A couple of days ago, I took a break from writing and sat on the patio, enjoying the shade and the birds and just thinking. I stared at a tree at the far end of the space, and my mind kept telling the gardener in me that several branches extended too far over the roof of the house. I thought to myself I’m going to have to trim four branches off that tree. Two of them are scraping the shingles on the roof, another one is headed for the roof and will touch by next year, and the fourth makes the tree look out of balance. The following morning I awoke and sat at the kitchen table having breakfast. Lovely got up came out of her bedroom and said Oh my God! What happened. She looked out at the patio and it looked a little like a mini tornado had come through during the night. Three of the four branches I thought needed to be cut, were on the ground. The falling branches raised all kinds of hell with Lovely’s potted flowers which were scattered throughout the yard. All I could think of was that I missed going to church the Sunday before and the Lord sent me a warning. I went to church this Sunday.

After seeing the tree with all those branches missing, I decided it isn’t worth keeping. I’m hiring an arborist to cut it down. It is time the yard got a new look.

Dreary, Dark, and Windy

Closeup of wild turkey in newly fallen snow

Today I postponed my daily walk a bit to catch a few extra degrees of warmth. The temperature didn’t matter though, the wind was blowing hard with gusts of fifty miles per hour. If it was at may back I was literally being pushed along faster than my legs would move. On the return, I got my workout. Several times the breeze stopped me dead in my tracks. Combine that with an uphill climb and the workout was intense. In either direction the breeze carried away any heat that the workout was providing and I was under dressed for it.

This after noon I added some more decoration to the house for Christmas. I am stopped at this point having broken my promise never to decorate again. As sorrowful as I want to be I force myself to see only the joy that Christmas brings. The tree, the lights, the colorful ornaments all add brightness to the dreary November days. Historically, in Illinois, November and December have the least amount of life sustaining sunshine in the year. So, why not brighten it up a bit?

I will post photos of my decorations once I figure out how to do it using a smart phone. (A smart phone operated by a  dumb operator who is beyond the tech-savy required to survive the conveniences.)

Have a very blessed and happy Thanksgiving holiday with family, friends, or with yourself, what ever the situation presents.

Wind is the Future, Gas is the Past

Let’s hang our hats on millions of propellers screaming in the breeze to push kilowatts of power into the electrical grid. In the mean time, how about if we hang a flame under President Obama’s ass to light the gas-flame of optimism he exudes for the wonderful new energy scheme into which he is investing our tax money. I hope he invests his personal 401K into wind power too, but my bet is that he owns Exxon.

While Obama counts money from his investments, let us ask the EPA to bury the corpses of dead birds before the Audubon Society wakes up.

In a link below the article brags about how the country of Denmark gets almost half its electrical needs from wind power. What they fail to tell us is that the population of Denmark is 5.5 million which makes Denmark smaller than Chicago, a relatively mid-size town in America. The USA can do that too, let’s be like Denmark, yeah!

Here are some photos to ponder. Have you seen any of these in the news?

Thanks for these great pics Rich.