Trees down

Gone is the Christmas tree. It still smells good and it's still green but it's brittle and now outdoors. Watering has been stopped for a week or so in order to have a lighter object to remove. Thank you, Rudolph's! And Mrs. H's old tree has been taken down. She was first our neighbor on one side and then our neighbor on the other side. We moved from one house to another on the same block on the same side of the street. She used to tie her little "Benjie" dogs to a low limb of that tree while she held the garden hose and talked to passers-by. She sported stockings rolled down to her ankles and very henna'ed flaming-red hair and was out there minding everybody's business until well past her ninetieth year of age and even after that was a backyard person there for the longest time until relatives stepped in. She once owned and ran a downtown cafe. We have enjoyed both households of successors but something of her spirit has now departed with the felling of that tree. Her pomegranate and her vitex and her nandina and one of her loquats are still there; so are a few of her oxblood lillies and leucojums. And just now I saw (and heard) my first stump-grinder. Stump-grinding was offered when one of our pecans leaning way off plumb was felled, but we've never wanted to disturb all those creatures who live amidst the roots. I hope never again to enjoy so close an encounter with a stump-grinder in this earthly existence, thank you very much.