Monday again and it's Flag Day!

 

Last week never stopped or slowed down despite rain and workmen.

Neither did we!

Tree felling consisted of removing three trees, two more very tall oaks - one

 hit by lightning and dying, one smothered in ivy which had been cut at the

 base but also looking near death's door!  The third, a smaller hickory, was

 growing into a large oak and blocking the sun. We need to keep that area

 drier. . . . . . and hopefully this will enable us to add more grass around the

 potting shed and deck areas.

Between feeding (baking muffins and cookies) and watering the tree crew of

five for two days - which BTW included a lovely young woman - I picked the

 tasty Genovese basil and made the first batch of seasonal pesto. 

There were other firsts, dahlias opening - a glowing Grandpa Ott

 morning glory. . . . . . . .

. . . . . .. and Ms. Deer, beautiful and gentle but enjoying siphoning off the

 bird seed three days in a row, so the feeder is now remaining empty in

 hopes she'll move on to another garden!

 

The rains have left and we are due to have a dry, sunny, and quite hot week.

Still working outside and, as I write, Bob is mowing the grass. I'm off to clean

the sawdust covered windows in back of the cottage.

Life is busy at this time of year. . . . . . actually any time of year

 around here.

Another day, another tree coming down -

Sadly, the very tall white oak, high above the back of the house, with

 its trunk starting to impinge on the foundation of the deck, and high

 branches dangling over the roof, needed to come down.

You know how much I love trees, both my own and all the others on this 

beautiful planet. However, among all the handsome, sturdy, tall, and healthy 

trees there comes a time when safety dominates and old, huge, too tall trees, 

need to come down with help of professionals rather than be felled by 

disease, rot, strong winds, even tornadoes and hurricanes which do

sometimes visit this part of the country!

Today was such a day and we welcomed back our great tree guy Jesus

and his crew.  Fortunately the weather has been perfect, cool and sunny, 

no wind at all. Yes, the January sky was really that blue today.

  

Jesus is the climber and made this dangerous job look like an aerial dance

among the bare winter branches.

I'll leave you here. The tree is down and the stump was ground.

A full day's work, a lot of dollars spent, but peace of mind.

Meanwhile we continue trying to get appointments for our initial 

vaccines - what a frustrating thing dealing with long phone waits,

crashing websites and such. We are on two different wait lists - it took

 a 1.5 hr. phone wait before my call was answered for one, the other

 we did online - and we hope at least one will come through with an

 appointment for us soon.

We live in a heavily populated county and our group has been changed 

from age 75 and over to 65 and over which encompasses thousands

 more people in the same boat as us  - guess that says it all!

January Garden Visitors -

The usual suspects, grey squirrels, are rampant in the garden again. 

Perhaps the mild daytime weather is bringing them out of their nests in the

 back garden treetops. 

They search on the grass for acorns - some they probably buried themselves

 in autumn - and scuffle around under the bird feeders for dropped seed. 

We have stopped throwing out bits of bread and such because we feel if 

 unwanted nighttime visitors, opossums, raccoons, foxes, deer, and the

 neighborhood coyote stop by, we shouldn't encourage them to return.

They are quite cute and, despite their naughty pranks at the feeders, 

we would miss them if they stopped their visits to our garden.

Trees are totally devoid of leaves now other than a glimpse of a green pine here and there. 

Blue skies, even with a few puffy clouds tossed in, bring smiles and thanks in

 January. . . . . . . . . which can be such a dreary month.

Update on the keyboard problems on my 2018 MacBook Air.

The Apple Genius Bar cleaned under the laptop's keys which appears

 to have helped, and I brought it home the same day. 

They tested and completed the work whilst I waited - a total of about 20 minutes. 

If it continues I can return and they will go ahead and replace with another

 keyboard which could take up to three days. Because this is a known problem

due to the 'butterfly' style keyboard installed on all MacBooks since 2015, 

Apple does not charge anything for the cleaning or replacement if necessary.

Life is much better when the computer works!