Poetry

Dad is Dad  backwards
Mom is Mom spelled backwards
Dog is God backwards

Trevor's idea of  Haiku Poetry

Trevor couldn't find his phone. He borrowed mine so he could dial his number and see if he could hear it ring to help locate it. Neither of us could remember the complete number since I have it on speed dial.  I have both his number and the house phone listed under his name on my phone. He dials the first number that comes up  and the house phone rings. I pick up and say "Hello, Trevor".

 He gets all excited on the other end. "Mom, you found my phone?!!".
"No, Dear, You called the house."

I had the boy on speaker phone and a guest in the kitchen listening in to the exchange. We started laughing. The whole exchange was so funny.

My neighbor on my other side is back from her winter trips. I caught her in the yard so we could talk about the trees we want to cut down. She was so pleased with my wanting to cut the dead trees out. They had been a concern for her also. She had asked her gardener, before we moved in, if he would take them out but he said they could get in trouble, like anyone would notice on an abandoned house, but best to be good and not trespass. Besides now you can reach the trees where before they seemed miles deep into the blackberries.

I have found the full bottom of our property. My gardening neighbor already has a debris pile going. I am now adding to hers. She is going to have her gardener do a burn for both of us. One big burn and get it all done at once. I will notify my neighbor on the other side of the date so he can leave while it is smoky. I can blame my nice neighbor for the burn to my other neighbor who would prefer I just let everything be and not clean up the yard and definitely not burn. Then we will be done with burning for good for this year.

 I have made great progress on the yard. Every week it looks better and better. Dug up hidden garbage under the berries, so my lawn mower wont hit anything dangerous to my health again; Beer cans, glass bottles, children's plastic toys and chairs. The glass bottles were my most concerning after the incident with hitting the chicken wire fence. 

My neighbor on the other side is excited that I will be planting the hill with trees. She is excited about my progress. "Good start" is what she said. She is encouraging with suggestions on where to get free starts.  I still have a lot of work to do. I told her I wanted to plant my edible forest. One of my friends laughed at how many fruit trees I have planted over the years and have yet to stay long enough in a house to harvest any of the fruit. I keep trying.

I want at least two apples, two pears, a couple of plum trees, a peach tree, maybe a  Bing cherry with what ever mate the Bing needs. You have to have a couple of each so they cross pollinate. I might add a couple of holly bushes, again you need two for berries. I have a request to put in a walnut tree but it will have to be way down in a far corner as they are big and messy. Topping out at 60 feet. Of course that may be years down the road, well past my life time before it gets that big.  I was thinking more like Filbert and Almunds for the nuts.

If I stick around long enough for a big harvest, maybe I will be able to get into canning fruit. Love apple sauce, love canned pears. I now have all the accoutrement's needed to take up canning thanks to my survival kit.

Anyway it was lovely to find a neighbor that likes my ideas and my progress. The trees in question turned out to be on my property, My neighbor was quite encouraging. Now if the weather would just cooperate, I can get more done. I have been spraying the new berry starts with crossbow. I can see the leaves begin to wilt within a couple of days. There are just so many new berry starts that I find. I still am scraping the downed wood to be put in our burn pile. It needs to be burned if only because it creates a fire hazard in the warm weather.

My neighbor was going to look into getting a permit to burn, since this pile is a bit larger than the "campfire" size  allowed. At least if we can't burn I have still achieved the cleared hill and the stuff can naturally decompose, just not in my way.

My neighbor's natural fence is English Laural. It is blooming at the moment and quite attractive. I look forward to my landscape looking less raw and more appealing over the years. I have to resist the temptation to run down to the nursery and buy plants.