Eucalyptus

I have been de-friended and re-friended by Minks who is trying out her new-found thirteen year old freedom. It's a little confusing, but I suppose that's how she rolls.

It's a big old glorious day. I'm sitting out on the deck in the sun staring at the huge Eucalyptus at the end of the garden and wondering how it should be pruned so that we can get more light in (by midday the sun will be obscured) but not so it looks like a poodle, as so many trees seem to end up in Los Angeles, having been butchered by cut-happy guys with chainsaws. My father knew all about trees. He knew to cut rings around the trunks of the apple trees that line the grassy path down the vegetable garden, so that the rings didn't quite meet and food could still get through. This way the trees were tricked into thinking they were dying and would produce bumper amounts of fruit the following year. I thought it brilliant as a child. He knew about growing hardwood groves, and which trees worked next to each other and how far apart they should be (most people don't know and crowd them which shrinks their eventual height). Every tree was familiar to him. He would sit here with me on this deck and look at that old Eucalyptus and tell me which branches I should take and how far down to cut. He'd probably fall asleep here in the sun with me. In two days it will or would be his 94th birthday although I doubt, if he were here, he would have aged a day.

The boys will be home soon. We've ridden; they've been shooting. J is making mushroom soup and leek frittata for lunch. I think we'll probably eat outside and listen to the birds.