A sad day for Ed: an enormous maple out front, the tallest one of them all, has to come down today and in a way it's my fault. Looking out the window one day I noticed a crack in the trunk. Was it rotting? It seems so healthy. Many inspections later, the decision was made: it has to come down. (In the alternative, it might splinter and fall on its own, hitting either the house or the power lines and the road.)
It pains Ed to witness this. He's not one to mope around when bad news strikes, but I do hear periodic expressions of grief throughout the day.
And what an otherwise beautiful day it is! Sunny, with the blossoming trees and bushes and a landscape that is practically singing with joyous growth.
(a burst of fragrance)
(our enormous crab apple in full bloom)
(our row of blossoming trees lining the path to the barn)
(the writer's shed, or a Monet painting?)
The tree guys arrive early (Ed went with the cheapest bid and it still will cost him a couple of thousand to bring that tree down). I do a quick dash to Madison Sourdough for baked morning treats (and a secret cake for tomorrow) and then we sit down to breakfast, finally on the porch!
I would say it's about as heavenly as you could possibly imagine, except for the noise of the sawing and hauling and chipping out front.
(peaking out through the window: they're half done with it)
(we get a lot of good maple wood chips thrown on our pile!)
By late afternoon, they're done with the maple and, too, they took off the dead branches from the willow that overhangs our parked cars).
Ed is depressed.
It does look bare out front, not helped by the fact that they butchered the grass with their heavy equipment. I go out to Kopke's and pick up a flower basket for the stump. Ed's idea, though it does not cheer him up.
And I return to work on the roadside bed. A few plants to put in and more compost to pile on. And of course, more weeds to dig out because naturally, I missed a good many in my mad work yesterday.
(The roadside bed is very long and impossible to photograph well, but here's a good chunk of it, to give you an idea of where I've been toiling these past two days.)
Are you tired yet of my gardening reports? I can understand that. People who have no desire to spend a chunk of their lifetime digging in the dirt could well roll their eyes at the detail included in a gardener's narrative. You will have noticed though that Ocean moves along at its own pace. In winter, repeat photos of a barren landscape could be written off as tediously dull. In the summer, reading about lilies clipped in the morning surely interests almost no one. But I hope it makes you smile just a little to know that this 72 year old person living in central Wisconsin gets really wrapped up in such inconsequential (in the scheme of things) events and milestones. And I especially hope that you are able to fill your days with equally inconsequential details that bring you contentment. Kids bounce around from one playful act to the next never pausing to consider if there is grandness in their day. We seem to aim for more, but in doing so, may we never forget about the pleasure of snipping off a spent lily, or walking to the barn on a misty cold morning. Days are so full of those uniquely beautiful vignettes. Well, beautiful for me.
(evening at the farmette)
with love...
