Red Maple
I have a deep and abiding love for trees. I’m told it’s very un-Republican of me. I compost too. When we moved into our house in 2000, I planted over a dozen trees. I was unable to convince DH to buy a lot covered with trees. So I planted some myself.
Planting a Tree
It’s difficult to tell from where he is standing. But DH and the tree are about the same height, when we first planted it. This mainly involved me trying to be helpful and him demanding that I just point to the desired tree location and get out of the way. We were the second residents to move into our subdivision. So the houses you see in the picture were at that time still being built.
Red Maple
2009, the tree is taller than our two story house. I asked DH if he would stand next to it for a picture and he surprised me by saying sure, when he was finished with whatever he was doing in the yard. But then we both got busy. So here is the tree, as seen from nearly the same spot of the porch, but about nine and a half years later.
I was trying to use this photo framing technique, where a bit of architecture or a natural element forms an organic frame within the picture. But this didn’t really capture how much larger the tree is. It is a good twenty feet tall and nearly as wide. I love it. It spreads out and makes the yard feel private.
DH is not such a huge fan. He has recently been complaining that my tree roots are invading his lawn. DH is very serious about the lawn.
Today was productive, I spent another hour sorting mail. Which my cousin finds unfathomable. It’s because I count the seriously annoying fact that I had to call a credit card company to remind them that my grandmother is dead, that they have been legally notified, and reminded already. And I would really like them to stop sending me notices to the contrary. It’s the third time; they need to get with it.
I managed to force myself to get this done by exiling myself to the library, where I am unable to procrastinate by doing dishes, laundry or any other household chore that I can justify as imperative to my families health and well being. I always sit near the childrens section, where it is noisy anyway. Because me opening mail and talking quietly on the phone for a moment is not even close to as loud as the noise coming from the children. A woman sitting at a table behind me talked on her cell quietly; and I barely noticed her.
But then a seriously loud, rude woman got on her phone, and paced the whole place, her loud voice going up and down in volume as she got closer to me and further away again. She walked right past the information desk, and nobody said a word. I stared at her. Other people stared at her. She did not shut up, or lower her voice. Seriously, where was the librarian who uses the Principal’s office voice on such people? I know there is one. I totally missed her today.
I gave up after a while, unable to discern the junk mail from the real mail with the rude voice echoing around me. But before I gave up I found an erroneously processed insurance claim, which means that either in the mail pile, or coming soon will be the matching, overly inflated bill. Ugh.
I think I will make the tree my happy place.
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