Finally done with that curve swerve!

At last, the county Public Works department has finished straightening out the S curve in our road by removing a tree. They responded to a neighbor's complaint about a pecan tree that has been successfully dodged by drivers on the road for at least the last 15 years. The neighbor's contention was that the tree presented a hazard. It was really a blessing in disguise because it caused folks to slow down a little as they zoom zoomed along. I have only seen one person nearly come in contact with the old tree and that was years ago.. It was a female who was driving a station wagon. She was going a little too fast and a wheel caught in soft dirt causing her car to spin around in the road. She came to rest with her headlights facing the tree while her tail lights pointed towards our house. She never drove the road that fast again.

After the guys from Public Works cut the tree down to a mere stump, a contractor came out and dug the roots out and pulled the stump from the ground. He also up pulled our concrete boundary marker and the white PVC pipe that was next to the marker. He left the marker and pipe lying where they fell. T went across the road and put the marker back in the hole.

In a few days, the county again came out and spread black dirt from the beginning of the curve to the end, along the whole length of our property. Ugly? Oh, it was ugly. We are so used to seeing the light brown dust of the road that the extreme blackness was just hurtful to the eyes.

A day or so after that, the big trucks came back and began dumping lime rock on the road - right on top of the black dirt. That would be okay, if they had merely laid down a thin layer. Nope, they mounded the lime rock up at least 6 or 8 inches above the ground level. They didn't allow for a driveway slant or any place for a driver to pull off the road. I think they're waiting for us to drive our cars and compress the lime rock to a level that is easier to manage. Right now, we have to go uphill to get on the road from the driveway. Forget coming off the road into the drive. We find ourselves slowing down to make the drop-off so we won't get a flat tire.

If the road doesn't compress much, maybe they'll bring one of those roller machines to run back and forth and flatten the lime rock enough for a person to come and go safely.

Oh, yes - and now, instead of a lovely old tree at the curve - we have a few white posts with yellow reflectors that line the road so that drivers will know to turn the wheels. Oh, well. We can only hope for seedlings along the roadside that will eventually grow into Pecans. Or Oaks. I'd take a Mighty Oak right about now.

I can still recall how good "normal" felt....

Just a musing that floated up from the recesses of the old brain. I recall after Hurricane Andrew how good it felt just to get a newspaper delivery. Everything was wiped away and we had no lights or water and every tree in the back yard was blown down. Still, there was the paper, lying on the walk in its plastic bag. It was such an uplifting feeling - something in the city still worked the way it was supposed to.

Can you imagine how much more hopeful a feeling for New Orleans that their team gave them the immense gift of a Super Bowl win! Way to go!!!

What they didn't get....

I took the photograph this morning. It kind of looks like a war zone with the stump as the only casualty. The supervisor told me that the work crew is finished and now we are waiting on another contractor to come and remove the stump. This is a pecan tree. You can hardly pull the seedlings from the ground after the root has established. They are deep rooted things - they'll crack off at the middle rather than uproot themselves. I want to see this contractor. I wonder if he owns a big blue ox - possibly named Babe?

Getting a blow by blow account

Well, today is the day to say goodbye to the pecan tree across the road. The County Public Works came this morning and the crew started cutting the limbs from the top down. They will take out the middle at some point today and then dig out the stump. At the end of the day, we will have a smooth place on the road where this pecan provider and squirrel haven has stood for some years now. This graceful old tree has been standing by the roadside for at least the fifteen years we've lived in this house and from the size of it when we moved in, it was there ten or fifteen years before that. Hey, this tree could have been a tender green shoot when T. and I were first married. I want to be the one to see the first squirrel jump from our trees to the ones across the road - they used to sail between the near branches and move from tree to tree over vast distances. Not going to work next time.

The near branch from that tree that any squirrel planned to land on will be just a distant memory on the way to the landfill. Pecan wood burns well so some of the work crew may take a limb or two home for the fireplace. Everyone who found out the tree was coming down has expressed dismay over the loss. All except the neighbor who sent in the letter of complaint. We know who it is and he will never get another bag of our cracked pecans. Nor will he be invited over to harvest the nuts from the ground. This guy, who thinks it's better to smite a tree just to get a little further look down the road (rather than moving his driveway) - doesn't deserve pecans.

I don't know. Is that too harsh?