Hi, everyone!
Around here, spring comes and goes for a while before it finally stays! We have some warm days, but we also have some cold ones!
We also have a lot of rain! At the bay, the water level always rises in spring. While the bay was frozen, I could see the gravel in front of our shoreline. Now I’m watching the water creep up the armor stone that protects our waterfront!
More of my daffodil friends started blooming, then we had a freezing night! The blossoms were really droopy the next morning, but they recovered in the sunlight when it got warm again. My tulip friends sprouted, too!
I’ve had two at-home adventures! Grandpa and Grandma decided to get a new mattress for their bed at the bay. It came rolled up in a very heavy box! Uncle Steven and James took the box up the stairs, then they brought the old mattress and box spring back down!
Then I helped Grandpa get ready to put the new mattress on the bed. We had to adjust the bed frame and assemble the support for the new mattress.
The new mattress was squished up in a vacuum sealed bag and wrapped tightly in plastic. When it was unwrapped and on the bed, Uncle Steven let air back into the bag. We all watched as the mattress expanded!
Last Tuesday, I could hear chainsaws when I woke up. Our next door neighbor was having big pine trees removed! Grandma told me she could remember when those trees were planted. They were the size of Christmas trees! Now they have grown very tall, and one big branch already fell off. The tree crew used a crane to work all the way up the trunk, cutting off branches as they went. I wanted to watch from outside, but Grandma said I needed to stay out of the way of the branches as they were tossed down. Once most of the branches were gone, the tree crew cut down the trunk, section by section.
The lowest part of the trunk came down as one piece. First, the tree crew cut a notch in the trunk to control which way it would fall. There was a rope from the little tractor, too, to pull it in the right direction. Then the tree crew made the final cut in the trunk and down it came! After that, the tree crew used a stump grinder to turn the very bottom of the tree into wood chips! Then a big truck with a crane attached came to pick up the big pieces of tree and haul them away. I liked watching all the big machines!
After the tree crew was done, Grandma and I took a walk around our yard. It was green day! The apple tree leaves were opening and so were the leaf and flower buds on my Sensation lilac friend. My double daffodil flower friends are too heavy to stand up straight, so they’re just the right height for me to say “Hi!” My tulip friends are blooming and so is the forsythia. There are daffodils in bloom in the back planting.
The weather person on TV said we’re not done having spring swings. We’re going to get more cold nights and rainy days, but I’m enjoying feeling warm outside!
Love,
Lion-san
That was a huge tree that the crew took down. I LOVE Forsythia. I especially like it when it is allowed to grow freely and I dislike it when people cut it and shape the shrub into a rounded shape. It needs to be allowed to grow as it wants to grow. When it is in full bloom and growing freely, I think of it as exuberant. Joyful. we celebrated Bill’s 85th birthday. First Bev and David took train from NYC to Poughkeepsie where we met them. Then they treated us to a wonderful lunch. We took them back to train. They flew to NYC Monday or Tuesday and Bev has a two day training she can count as Continuing Education Units. On our way home we picked up a cake. At 6:00 we had a party at Woodland Pond with a total of 20 of us having dinner together, all preordered with cake for all and shared laughter and anicdotes.