The Occasional Joke


Nurse: Patient's name?

Centurion: Marcus Licinius Crassus

Nurse: And his date of birth?

Centurion: 115 BC.

Nurse: All right. And what is he here for?

Centurion: Cataphract surgery.


Saturday, July 5, 2008

Tree Trouble






So 8:00 PM, Wednesday night, I'm sitting on the couch and the weather is getting dicey outside. Suddenly, the wind picks up, and all hell breaks loose.

Basically, a giant old box elder tree, right at the corner of four lots, finally came apart. A few years back, part of it came down on a neighbor's house, but the result was nothing like this. The pictures here are from today, Saturday, after the tree crew has been by and cleaned up enough for the utility to get to the downed power lines.

The weight of the tree on the wires snapped the 70-year-old utility pole like a twig. We had fence damage, some damage to gutters -- not sure yet if there's any roof damage. The insurance folks will be around next week to look into it.

Power was off for about 30 hours, give or take. The ironic thing was that our sparkling new generator was one of the things buried under pieces of tree, so it did us no good.
If you've been in our back yard, you'll recognize that it's essentially full -- a whole yard full of tree shards. Sometime next week. a tree service will be coming to rectify that.



WRT box elders, Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs spends a couple of paragraphs damning them with faint praise: "For those areas of the country where tree culture is fraught with difficulty, this species can be recommended." (Trans: if nothing else will grow, try a box elder.) "Wood is subject to breakage ..." (Trans: Duck and cover!)

Drink for thought

Stealing this from the current Kermit Lynch newsletter. A positive note in an otherwise negative storm:

"The specter of globalization that is so often used to frighten French
winemakers is really only a concern for those who have chosen to compete
with ‘new world’ wines. It doesn't aĆ’ect winemakers who are driven
by conviction, philosophy, or passion. They've chosen the high road and will
be fine.” —Antoine Arena


Arena is a Corsican wine maker. I'll be checking with Matt at Morgan and York to see if any this stuff is going to make it to Michigan.

Friday, July 4, 2008