The Life of Ange

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Playing hard to get

Playing hard to get, originally uploaded by Life in the Pumpkin Shell.

My parents.

I kept telling mom, "Nope. Didn't get that one in focus."
SO ...they did this at least five times.
My dad is pretty shy with the public affection, so this was me getting back at him for all the groundings back in the 80s.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

The Currency of Trees

Ms. Elenor dances whilst I stir the pot, originally uploaded by Coal and Ice.

Might as well have been years ago when I stole Coal's camera and snapped this shot.

First of all, these two share the same birthday, and if you know me, you know I have this annoying habit of asking about birthdays, because I see the similarities in people of same astrological signs.
Not all same signs get along, but this one seems to.

Pick and Coal worked together like they shared another language.

Here you see her doing her Pickles dance while Coal rotated the soil.
She doesn't know she's dancing, or making up a song about tree planting while she's dancing. She does it spontaneously, without thought of performance, and I love it.

She makes me have thoughts like A. A. Milne.
Doesn't she look like Christopher Robin?
Coal would have been Rabbit in this scenario, as he was doing most of the work. Tom might have been Pooh. Jack was asleep, so ...maybe he was Pooh and Tom was just the handy guy with the wheelbarrow.

*I paused my typing, looked up and saw the pileated woodpecker flying by. Two flaps, a dip in altitude, two more flaps, another dip. He's so lucky to be alive, that one.
The pileated woodpecker is not very bright. One day, he flew straight into the back window. I watched it happen in slow mo, willing him to 'Pull up! Pull up!!!' but he didn't. I was on the phone with my brother at the time, yelled "Ahhhh!" without my brother knowing why, then simply explained, "Stupid woodpecker."

Like the house should have just moved for him.
The pileated woodpeck lifted himself off the deck, flew to a nearby tree and immediately started pecking. Not even embarrassed. The other birds were still looking at him, watching for signs of brain injury, but apparently he flies into windows all the time, so the sparrows and jays and finches and robins all shrugged their little wings and told their younglings to NEVER do what the pileated woodpecker just did.

Another day, he was in the firepit, pecking on a burnt log for forty minutes. A few sparrows landed on the pit stones now and again. 'Hey, woodpecker! You Okay? Can I take you somewhere? This is a burnt log, brother. You're probably not gonna find bugs in it. See? It's still sizzling. Your beaks on fire! You sure that window crash didn't mess you up a little?'
Peck peck peck peck peck...
As soon as I stepped outside with the zoom lens, the woodpecker was gone. Off to peck one of those fake logs you can buy at Lowes, I expect. Poor silly creature.

And all of the above, just because I looked up for five seconds and watched a bird fly by.*

When Stef and Neil got married, Neil gave me a giant sequoia and a palm tree. Neil plants trees, but is selling his house, and the sequoia might be the tree they got married over in their backyard.

It has been a house tree since last fall, because I just didn't think it'd stand a chance if I planted it last winter.

When Coal said he was stopping by, I knew we'd plant that tree.

Coal is also a tree guy.

That Burr Oak in the foreground was a gift from Zilla via Arbor Day. I have another one growing very well twenty feet away from this one, and three maples, and several apples, and I'm rationalizing to those who might not understand how I could swap out an oak for a sequoia in Indiana...Especially such a cute little oak, doing so well.

The oak had to be swapped out for the sequoia, because the sequoia is supposed to become a huge tree, and maybe it won't be in my lifetime, but just in case it is, to maintain the view from the house to the pastures (where I watch my swooping hawks and lumbering woodpecker friend), and to protect the trees themselves, because the ponies have destroyed half a dozen small trees with their rumps, and killed two willows and a couple hardwoods that I spent hours digging holes for...grrr...all trees must be planted outside of the fence and off to the side of the view, and two years at this place, we've come close to planting all that we can plant in the space that it is plantable...until we do my T-fencing idea, which I won't go into now, because most of you would simply suggest, "Why don't you just get rid of those ponies?"

The burr oak is now planted at Coal's house, halfway across the state.

Nobody will know, a hundred years from now, how both trees were planted by a golden kid and her birthday buddy. They will hunt morels underneath (best case scenario) and assume the trees have always been there, like mountains, without a story.

Maybe the sequoia in the middle of Indiana will cause a few scratched heads. Maybe it will have to get cut down because it's messing up the eco system, or too high for hover cars to fly over.

And now I'm looking at all the trees in my yard, wondering how they got there. How long ago were they planted? What was going on in history at the time? Was there a little girl dancing?

Wondering...WHY is that woodpecker not extinct!!?

Grabbing for my camera...and...he's gone.

Happy Birthday to my brother. Not a Christopher Robin sort, but absolutely Max the Wild Thing. We walked under many trees together as kids, following creeks in our bare feet. Those trees above us then were saplings while the Miamis were still hunting game. I have to stop thinking about them soon. Suddenly saddened because of Shel Silverstein's story.
Surely the Sycamores have had plenty other visitors since then. But what if they haven't?

Now my brother lives far away, where the trees are home to many clever and ravenous squirrels with southern accents, outsmarting the family dog while stealing all my brother's juicy tomatoes and using the tree branch system to do it. Just wait 'til they start throwing tomatoes at him!

Makes me miss Tico a little. The bastard squirrel who threw walnuts at my dogs and children.

My brother shares a birthday with Zilla's childhood best friend, so happy birthday to her, too.
And many more rings for all of us.

Gotta go outside now and check on the world.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Plaster and lath

Plaster and lath, originally uploaded by Coal and Ice.

My friend Coal's photo.

I love it.

It reminds me of my grandmother's garage.
Which makes me think of the 80s as a kid, when I could spend all day happily playing with old junk.

Monday, June 08, 2009

Ella Grace

Ella Grace, originally uploaded by oochygoochygoo.

She's already dreaming about college applications.

*SNIFF*

(Gotta meet this kid soon!!!)

Friday, June 05, 2009

September '05 - Kids at the Indy Zoo

September '05 - Kids at the Indy Zoo, originally uploaded by Life in the Pumpkin Shell.

Scrolling through my Flickr stream (obviously--taking weeding breaks), I saw this shot from '05. Taken the day after we decided to pull Jack out of preschool.
I'd been walking around the zoo, trying to get my head straight, putting on a brave face for the kids.
Felt pretty heavy hearted all day, though.
Until this moment.
I remember putting the camera down, breathing, and accepting what we'd decided to do.
The kids didn't care what was going on inside my head. They just wanted to go play with the pygmy goats.

Three and a half years later, I finally noticed how closely Pickles is looking at the suckling piglets.

*Finally able to laugh about it.
Pretty amazing.
Jack has now graduated from second and is moving on as a third grader.
My baby's gonna start Kindergarten in the fall.

It's not so much that time has gone by quickly. It's that when I took this picture, I was so worried and had no idea how it was all going to turn out. Nobody did, really. I wanted to be where I am now, looking back, but you can't do it, so there I sat. Freaked.

And now?
Now I think it's funny that Pickles was so into those pigs.