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Blogs by Bob Hicks
trees' company 5/8/2004 6:38:45 PM
Sycamores are nearly in full leaf... those that still stand along Main Street. Many have been eliminated because their shallow, massive roots upheave slabs of man-made concrete sidewalk as though they were saltine crackers. No big loss, I suppose, they're funny looking, anyway, with their blotchy, paint-by-number bark. We'll get rid of 'em. Somebody got rid of the hawthorns, too, I guess, and most of the poplars. Popular rumor (no pun) suggests the current dying-off of ash trees is due to acid rain... but who cares about ash trees, anyway? I've seen lots of may apples, a surprising number of tulip magnolias in glorious full bloom and, in a parking lot... just the other day... a radiant, show-off-them-big-pink-blossoms plum tree. I swear, if the damn thing had feet, it would have been strutting it's stuff. The olive tree out back needs trimming. I'll do that soon. It's a nice enough tree ('though I doubt anybody notices), but it has a tendency to produce clusters of 'sucker' shoots. I'll trim them back, and cut out the deadwood, too. The beavers took down quite a few birch saplings last fall, and built a pretty impressive dam with them. But somebody didn't like the resulting back-water, and disassembled it; burned the sticks, too... that'll show 'em, the goddamn rats. Two lodges now stand almost completely out of water, but I think their entrances are still below the surface. Maybe they'll get this year's 'pups' weaned before all the water drains out of the marsh. Maybe not... who cares? Well, actually, I do, but who the hell cares about that? The lake is getting back down to normal levels and soon we'll be seeing lots of daring young dudes zipping about on their jet skis. Spring... ya gotta love it.
