Vermeer

There's two Vermeers at my house. Not the kind done in oils on canvas. The kind that devour trees and spit them out as wood chips. It makes me a little sad to be taking down over a dozen trees in our yard. But the emerald ash borer has been busy. And we have had a lot of ash trees. The only bright spot is that, with some major grooming, we are able to keep the two enormous, old, old beech trees.

The trees that aren't posing a danger to power lines or structures remain untouched for the critters and woodpeckers. We plan to use the wood chips from the brush of the felled trees in the (future) gardens and for (future) landscaping. The trees themselves we will cut for firewood. In true Odd Bird fashion, everything will be put to use.

Oh, and another spot of brightness? We learned from one of the tree guys that we have a healthy, huge American elm tree. I thought they were wiped out long ago by Dutch elm disease. Apparently, not all of them succumbed.

A few happy things from earlier this week:

1. We may be taking down trees, but we are growing 9 foot tall weeds! We think this is Canada lettuce (Lactuca canadensis), aka tall lettuce, aka wild lettuce.

2. I found these foot long seed pods while going for a walk in town with Hubs the other day. A friend of mine says they are from a horse chestnut.

3. Yummy improvised corn veggie soup with homemade bread warm from the oven.