Saturday, November 15, 2008

This Story Has a Happy Ending

Several years ago a squirrel, or more likely a blue jay, buried an acorn in the middle of our back yard. Sam saw that it had sprouted and put a little fence of sticks around it to alert me to leave it be. Before I understood the magnitude of what was happening, I acquiesced. It was little. "Oaks grow very slowly," I told myself. I should have put my foot down right then, on top of that treelet.

Fast forward to August 2008. That tree is pretty darn big. It is shading what we would like to call our vegetable garden. More importantly to me, it is blocking the sky. Now I do put my foot down. The tree must go. Sam sadly sees my point. I'm sad too, because the tree means so much to him. We had recently done some research and decided it was a California black oak. Now it had an identity and birds regularly sit on it's branches. Still, I wanted it out of there. Obviously I have a ruthless side.

We called ArborTech (Ben) to look at another tree that might need thinning (think vegetables). I mentioned that we also wanted to take down this adolescent black oak. Without hesitation, Ben said, "We can move it." I could hardly believe it, but he assured me that a friend of his was about to pay a nursery $350 for a tree that size. "I'm sure he'll be glad to have this one for free." That's how we met Barrett and his friend. The story unfolds below. It took these hardy young men most of the day. They smiled a lot, letting me know that they had not outgrown playing in the dirt and doing the next to impossible, moving a very big tree to it's new home on Faith St.

Friday, November 14, 2008

The Art of Tree Re-location









Sam has visitation rights whenever he wants.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Yes! Yes! Yes We Can!

Cincinnati, Ohio, November 2, Barack Obama again told the American people what he believes.

We don't need to keep talking about big government versus small government. That's old thinking. We need smart government...We don't need money or reform for education. We need both.... We aren't red states and blue states, we're the United States.

Obama is a Both/And President! I'm awed and grateful that he will lead us for the next eight years. As I've sweated and fretted out the days before we actually crossed the finish line, I've listened to American Prayer by Dave Stewart dozens of times and made the SoulCollage card pictured here.

American Prayer ends with words from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. about reaching the Promised Land followed by this refrain:

When you get to the top of the mountain
Will you tell me what you see
If you get to the top of the mountain
Remember me

My personal American prayer is that we continue the work started by courageous men and women before us, the work of choosing to create a country where love is more powerful than fear.