Tree

I often will sit at my computer staring at the keys looking for inspiration. To date, the keys have yet to even give the smallest hint about what I am going to write. For that matter, I don’t think they know what I have just written, or care.

It makes me long for the typewriter in a way. With a typewriter you could take the ribbon out and read what you had just written. It wasn’t easy and it was very messy, but in theory you could do it. Well, unless you were cheap like me and just kept rewinding the ribbon until there was barely any ink left at all on it. Yes, you could just look at the page sticking out of the typewriter, but where is the fun in that?

 

Anyways, the keyboard is useless and the desk is a little too cluttered to be inspiring. Well, it seems like it wants to inspire me to clean, but that is just crazy. I figure when and if it gets cluttered enough there will be a story in it, what has disappeared, what appeared or what might actually be living under all of that crap. Being attacked by my desk will definitely merit a blog.

Today I am looking out the window for inspiration. From where I sit, I can’t see that the ground is covered with snow and the road wet with slush. That’s a good thing. I can see a couple of trees and although there is a little snow on them, it is more like highlights in someone’s hair than an indication of more to come.

The one tree is an evergreen tree that Arwen was given on Arbour day when she was 7 or 8. This tree moved around the yard and didn’t do very well until I planted it in the middle of the front lawn. I guess plentiful sunlight, an adequate supply of fresh water, being ignored by the humans in the house and plenty of cars spewing carbon dioxide out, made for the perfect growing conditions. It is now getting far too large for the lawn and will cost me to have it cut down and hauled away. I tried to get Arwen to take it home with her since it is technically hers, but she decided to “gift” it to me. Thanks…

 

The other tree that I can see is one of those weed trees the developer’s plant to make the neighbourhood look older, faster. This particular tree is an Ash and I have come to hate it over the years. It drops millions of seeds every fall which fill the eaves and get tracked in the house by the dog. You can’t rake them up, birds and squirrels won’t eat them and the wind just can’t blow hard enough to make them the neighbour’s problem. The only good thing about it is that it does give some shade in the summertime which keeps the house temperature at a tolerable level.

 

Over the years I have hacked off a branch that was hanging too low. I cut one that had broken from the weight of its seeds (or the snow). I trimmed a few branches to keep the neighbour kids from climbing and possibly breaking their necks. It didn’t bother me that the kids would get hurt; it’s just that I couldn’t afford the legal costs. The tree has gotten uglier and uglier over the years due to having lost key limbs that would have balanced the feng shui of the tree.

Unfortunately, I have put off cutting it down for too long. Now, if I attempt to cut it down it will more than likely crush a car or cave in one of the neighbour’s roofs. I can cut it up to the height of my extension ladder and make it look like a truffula tree, but I am going to need to give that some thought.

 

Until then, I will look out the window, stare at the tree and wonder what the hell I am going to write about.