Tale of a Shooting Star…

We’ve finally managed to get someone out to take down the 4 trees (2 are completely dead; 3 could have hit the house) we’ve been trying to get rid of for a year. The two poplars are the dead ones, of course. The other two are hickory and oak, so should make some nice firewood for someone, hopefully.

One of the two guys climbed the hickory tree to cut it in segments because it’s just feet from the shed and the house. That was scary to watch, since I looked out the window just after he cut off the first large segment and he was clinging to the tree, waiting for it to stop swaying. He was really far up (ended up going even further) and it wasn’t a terribly wide tree. 😯

They felled each of the two tall trees along the driveway with just one cut a piece. What a thud those made hitting the ground! It’s a unique sound, with sound waves resonating through the wood to create one tone at the same time that the ground resonates with another tone. I can’t even explain it much less begin to reproduce it.

The large, VERY dead poplar at the front shattered into myriad pieces everytime they cut off a major segment. What a mess to cleanup! Terry said that he saw one of the guys scoop something out of the first part they cut and put it into another tree. I asked them later when they took a lunch break what it was, turns out there were baby squirrels in the tree! Hopefully, the mother will come back for them.

For just two men working on four trees, they went pretty quickly (less than 6 hours). I have to say that I’m rather impressed. Definitely not an easy job. I feel like such a … girl. 😆 The owner will be back to grind out the stumps and settle the bill another day. I already transferred the funds out of savings, so I really don’t care. He was able to give us some advice on relatively fast growing, but hardy and strong, trees to plant as replacements.

I had to lock poor Phoebe pup in our bedroom for a good bit of the time they were here. She was having a conniption with all of the noise of the trees coming down and the chipping. I felt bad about that, but it kept her from barking, for the most part. Combine a barking dog with Terry on a conference call with consultants on speakerphone and it just doesn’t work. The round ball of sound energy waves that come out of her mouth and assault my eardrums when she’s close to me and at just the right position is quite amazing. I guess today is an audibly enriched day. 😉

The landscape of my front yard is so changed now. It seems barren and empty and … *gasp* … sunny! Makes me want to cry, actually. 😥 *sniff* I’m very attached to my trees (and my privacy!) and it’s been a long, upsetting saga with this lot since day 1. We started with the only fully wooded lot in the development. I sat and cried my eyes out when they first cleared it to start building. And now we’re having to take down half of the trees that they left in the front. We paid a $5K premium for a wooded lot, another $4K charge to clear it for building and now another $1K to clear more of it. *sigh* Next will be probably be another $1K to install new trees. Maybe more, since I’m going to want something bigger than just the little puny starter trees that will take 15+ years to create reasonable shade and privacy. *bigger sigh*

Gosh, am I whiney or what? Sorry about that! I feel like I run the risk of sounding like Eeyore sometimes. Honestly, though, life is good, in general. I’m thankful for what I have, including the money to be able to remove my beloved trees and the ability to replace them.

On the first day God created the dog. God said, “Sit all day by the
door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. I
will give you a life span of twenty years.”

“The dog said, “That’s too long to be barking. Give me ten years and
I’ll give you back the other ten.”

So God agreed.

On the second day God created the monkey. God said, “Entertain
people, do monkey tricks, make them laugh. I’ll give you a twenty
year life span.”

The monkey said, “How boring, monkey tricks for twenty years? I don’t
think so. Dog gave you back ten, so that’s what I’ll do too, okay?”

And God agreed.

On the third day God created the cow. God said, “You must go to the
field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have
calves and give milk to support the farmer. I will give you a life
span of sixty years.”

The cow said, “That’s kind of a tough life you want me to live for
sixty years. Let me have twenty and I’ll give back the other forty.”

And God agreed again.

On the fourth day God created man. God said, “Eat, sleep, play,
marry, and enjoy your life. I’ll give you twenty years. ”

Man said, “What? Only twenty years! Tell you what, I’ll take my
twenty, and the forty the cow gave back and the ten the monkey gave
back and the ten the dog gave back, that makes eighty, okay?”

“Okay,” said God, “You’ve got a deal.”

So that is why the first twenty years we eat, sleep, play, and enjoy
ourselves; for the next forty years we slave in the sun to support
our family; for the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain
the grandchildren; and for the last ten years we sit on the front
porch and bark at everyone.

Life has now been explained to you.

Well, I finally found an answer. It took a while, but I finally found Mr. Unky via the back door that is Can Hed Comix. This was his free comic strip that is also currently unavailable. Sounds like the guy had a rough time trying to keep Unkymoods afloat.

Here’s what Mr. Unky (a.k.a. Marc Lutz) had to say:

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Hi there.
Remember me? I’m the guy who created Can Hed Comix a long while ago, and I used to post the comic strips on this web site. Well, I’m back, and I have news for those of you who are interested. Here’s the nutshell version.

UnkyMoods.com is no longer in existence. It had a good run. It made people happy. Ultimately, the hosting issues and the overall programming issues made me unhappy, and that’s just not proper. It’s either going to fade away for good, or I’m going to sell it. Any takers?

Ducks In Lodi is about to celebrate its one-year anniversary with the Lodi News-Sentinel. It has gone from being published twice a month (or every other week) to being published weekly. Huzzah for the quackers!

Can Hed Comix is still in existence, but only drawn when I have the time and inspiration. I’ll be working on setting up the archives of the old stuff for you die-hard fans.

That’s about it. More soon!

– Marc, 11:18 PM

I can sure sympathize with you, Marc! I can only imagine the kind of bandwidth needs Unkymoods had. If you had an email address somewhere (and I will go digging for one after posting this), I would like to write and talk to you about your experience with Unkymoods. I’d like to explore what possibilities might lie ahead for such a great service. Maybe sell the mood sets off to blog owners at a certain set price? Or find someone with unlimited bandwidth (this would unfortunately not be me) to take over? Or find a way to fund it with advertising? Or something?

If you happen to read this, please contact me at jenna at magees dot net (I’m sure you can form this into a reasonable email address 🙂 ).