Thursday, February 26, 2009

This February Is Out of Here!

Here's the Christmas cactus blooming in February! Remember it bloomed in November also! It is too strange. Anyway, it is alive and well-no matter the month! Yesterday was a Blessings Day! I went to the tax preparation lady, and my taxes are not as bad as I thought they would be. I don't owe much money at all! As I drove into my drive, a black truck drove in right behind me. There were 4 young men from Texas who wanted to know if I wanted my trees trimmed. As with any disaster, one has to be aware of rip-offs, and stranger danger.

I talked to them at length-Where are you from, Why are you here, What do you charge, etc.etc. I got to know them all pretty well. They were willing to trim my 5 biggest trees by climbing into the trees and trimming them! I was a little bit leery of anyone climbing into the trees, but they said there is no way to use a bucket on some of the trees. When they returned from lunch, they got to work immediately. It took them about 2 to 21/2 hours to trim out my 5 big trees. One young man climbed up to the tippy-top of my catalpa, and he shimmied along all the big limbs of the white oak. They took care to manage all their equipment. When they were through with something, they folded it up carefully and put it back into its place.

In the meantime, I began dragging limbs from the back to the front to put by the roadside for cleanup. I am sceptical that anyone is actually going to come by and cleanup the mess. But everyone assures me that there is cleanup. The young men dragged their pieces and laid them neatly in a pile.

Then my friend GO came by with his chainsaw to cut up more on the lot behind my house. There is probably enough wood on this place and that lot to last him 3 years of wood burning. So my yard was buzzing with activity.

Last night I remembered why it is difficult to keep up with 4 young men on the work front. I was physically whupped. I ran a really hot bath and soaked for 30 minutes. I took ibuprofen and climbed into bed and read until 11p.m.

So thanks be to the spirits that help me out and send nice people to my doorstep!

I found an interesting audiobook at the library yesterday, Galileo's Daughter. It is translated from the Italian, and is based on letters between Galileo and his oldest daughter. He placed her in a convent at age 13 for safety. She was his main support system while he was being persecuted by the Catholic Church. I am going to listen to this while spinning. It should be interesting. I am reading Daughter of the Forest. It is a fictional book based on the fairy tale of the girl who had to make shirts for her 6 brothers out of nettles to break the spell of the evil stepmother. The sorceress had changed them into swans and when the sister completes the shirts and puts them onto the swans they will return to human form. Although I had known this fairy tale, the book is very riveting and suspenseful. This girl has more guts and stamina than I every could have. And she gets into lots of trouble along the way.

Well, I think I will complete my rest day by spinning. I have knit group tonight, and I will do my knitting tonight. Tomorrow it is back to the yard for more work. But today I am resting my tired-out old body. I have three beds ready for planting, and I filled one of my planters that I always put flowers in about May. It is hard to shovel dirt into the wheelbarrow and haul it to the back of the house. But I want to get these garden beds completed, and then I will turn to the front flower garden once again. I still have tons of small limbs and trash to pick up. I am looking for someone to have a shredder/chipper. GO says he has one, but he is not sure if it works. That would make clean up easier with this smaller stuff.

Enough griping. I am just going to relish my blessings and start spinning!

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