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Recent Things and Some People

I am resting from my labors.

No, no!  Not in the We-are-in-church-trying-to-pretend-that-Conrad-was-a-warm-fuzzy-fellow kind of way!  I just came in from the cold. . . .  No, that was a book.  I was out in the heat, clearing away things so that people who do real work can work;  specifically, removing vegetable garden irrigation things so as not to trip up the guys wheeling the tree-in-pieces to the street.

A couple of nights ago, it rained in our little part of Tucson, and sometimes when it rains, the wind blows in a peculiarly exuberant fashion.  It blew exuberantly, and persuaded a rather large mesquite tree to yield way, landing on the sawhorses I had been using to build a place for flower pots, and on the fence along the south side of the house.  Fortunately, it did not rain on our house, so to speak.  We cannot see the fence, but it does not take a genius. . . .

From up on the hill, one can see that the tree is almost as tall lying down as it was standing up.  There are such people. . . .

I am not removing it.  I am removing what has to be moved to allow the people who still have not learned to respect their chain saws (and age, and backs) to take away in short pieces what god hath wrought with a shallow root system.  Shrub garden water was too conveniently accessible.

I do not want to be the hero who has to worry the root system into manageable pieces.  I want to be the guy who sleeps behind that window in the morning when the sun comes directly in the bedroom.
The brown thing, to the right, is one of the shade screens I had put up between the house and a couple of trees to keep the water in Jao's wading pool from steaming off into wherever El Niño goes.

 Coyote came calling this morning.  Coyote [co-yo-tay], as you know, is the creator of the earth [We live in the Desert Southwest, now, and religion here is not the same as it was in Salem, Massachusetts, and as it might be in Indiana or on TV.]

Coyote saw something the birds had scorned, but the hanging bird feeder and the shadow it cast made him mighty suspicious, but he worked his way around beneath the palo verde branches until he could snatch whatever it was and retire to shade to gnaw it.

I cheer for Coyote when he comes, and for the family of javelinas that have well-established trails all around the neighborhood, but I leave them to their own decisions.  Coyote hides from people, for good reason, but one never knows what a herd of javelinas will do.  Either critter is better than stumbling around on the hillside and spying a snake.




"Snikes", as Steve Irvin, the Crocodile Hunter,  might have said but probably didn't, need better alarm systems.  That is why I am anxious to see the condition of the fence beneath the fallen tree.  The fence was relatively snake proof, and kids and snakes are slow learners.

Hummingbird lost a couple of nectar feeders when the tree went down, but I think I can see at least one of them down under there where I am not about to crawl.  The feeder outside our kitchen window is back in action, and the one out by the entry on the other side of the house has been rehung.   Hummingbird was hatched nearby, or returns often enough to know that the people on the other side of the window are a necessary nuisance.  Unlike coyote.

I have finally accepted, only because Some People continue to remind me, that I am the Chief Cook and Freezer-Plugger-Upper.

I made a French Ham and Bean soup yesterday, and froze the leftovers.  Today, when I proposed to shop for the ingredients for a French Chicken Noodle soup, Some People reminded me that my pacing is faulty and that the freezer is plugging up.

Some People are merciless!

Today I shall eat what I ate yesterday.





Comments

  1. UnknownAugust 26, 2015 at 8:32 PM

    I am glad you cheer for Coyote, creator of the earth. (And wish I had some French Ham and Bean soup in my freezer.)

    ReplyDelete

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