Another weekend, another few thousand dollars down the drain.  During the recent heavy rainstorms, we had a huge limb from one of the pine trees in our yard crash down into our neighbor's driveway, landing on her roof, driveway and low brick wall that separates our properties.  Alan cleaned it up and there was no damage to her property, but nightmares about what could have happened haunted us.  It was clear that the four pines at the corner of our house, which had the potential to hit our house, her house, her detached shed and fence had to go, at minimum, and probably the other pines in the front yard as well.

One of my BFFs had some trees removed from her property last summer so I called her to find out what company they had used.  Because the trees were so large and had the potential to damage so many different things, we were adamant about using a licensed, bonded and insured company for this, not Bubba with a chainsaw.  My friend Anne gave me the company name and number, and reassured me about my reluctance to destroy nature by telling me that the trees were all likely dead or dying anyway because of a terrible pine beetle epidemic plaguing our area.  The flip side of this was that I was now horrified that there would be another storm and the pine-beetle-plagued trees would give way before professionals could arrive.

Fortunately, that didn't happen, the four trees nearest our houses are gone, stumps ground away and I am now Red The Ent-Slaughterer, Destroyer of Worlds.

On the bright side of things, my brother and his wife (Valentine Wolfe link to the right) have a new project called Nightingale:  A Gothic Fairytale.  I offered some editorial suggestions along the way and although I don't know how much the finished project will resemble the draft I worked on, I am very excited about this one.   Check them out and help support local artists, if it be your fancy.  I offered them ten pounds of wood chips and all the pine straw they could carry, but apparently Kickstarter only wants dollars.  Go figure.