Covidities - or My Covid Activities

 As we move through our 8th month of restrictions due to Covid, I have looked for additional ways to fill my time. I have made many jars of jam, sewn more than my fair share of masks, baked new types of bread, worked on my photography, pickleball and kayaking skills, and hiked many mountains in the area. But last week I tried something totally new and out of my comfort zone - a watercolor class.

fall leaves

We have many talented people in our community, many of them artists. While I do feel that I have an artistic side, it comes out in my photography, writing and quilting. I have never been confident with drawing or painting, and so I hesitated to sign up for the beginner watercolor class offered by one of the art teachers here. But Jim really wanted to take it so I thought, what the heck, this might be something we could enjoy together.

Due to Covid, the class size is small and it was only Jim and me at our table in the meeting room. We were to bring a leaf to class for our first project. Thankfully, we only had to trace it on the paper instead of drawing it freehand. But first we learned about wet versus dry painting, and how to blend our paints to get the color we want. It was fun, and I didn't think my leaf turned out too bad!

leaf watercolor

Eager to try something else while the class was fresh in my mind, I looked for inspiration online. I found a beautiful tree that I decided to use as a starting point. This one I had to create on my own as I had nothing to trace, so that was more of a challenge for me. I made a couple of mistakes, and found our how unforgiving watercolor paints can be. But overall, I am very happy with the end result. A cousin said that she sees the world's family tree in the painting. As a genealogist, no comment could have pleased me more.

I also created a painter's mark for myself, which appears on the bottom corner of the tree painting, as I didn't really think the KW I used on my leaf looked very cool. I absolutely love what I came up with, and will use it on all my future works. We have three more classes (one per month) so I know I'll have at least three more paintings - ha!

watercolor tree

Loss of Limb

I just can't make this stuff up. Tuesday afternoon a storm blew in, complete with high winds and heavy rain. I heard a thunking noise outside the house and immediately knew what had happened. After all, I have already had two trees fall down within three months so far this year. The sound had come from the back yard, so I cautiously peeked out the bedroom window. A large oak limb had broken off of one of our trees, smashing onto the patio. I offered up a thankful prayer that this time only our property had been damaged. Or so I thought. Once the rain let up, I threw on a raincoat and took my camera outside to survey the damage. Crap! The limb caught part of the neighbor's fence in addition to busting some of our stuff. This would be the same neighbor whose car was totaled when one of our trees fell on it Good Friday. He and his wife were out of town all week taking their oldest child off to her freshman year of college. We have not had a chance to discuss the latest calamity yet.

We had a bid for the tree removal on Friday (the earliest they could come out due to all the storm damage), and today all the debris was removed. One of the table umbrellas was busted up, as well as the slats on one of the wooden chairs, but remarkably that was all the damage that was done to our property. The painters (who are still here, by the way) had a stack of ladders on the patio, and one of their ladders was bent. It may be repairable, I don't know. The ladders probably saved our actual patio surface from being damaged by the limb. One section of the neighbor's fence will need to be replaced as far as I can tell. We continue to endear ourselves in the neighborhood, one tree at a time.

The tree professionals said that the drought we had in recent years caused the trees and their limbs to weaken. When we have a wet spring like we did this year, the trees produce an excessive amount of leaves so in a heavy storm the limbs (or entire tree) just give out. That certainly makes sense. This latest tree incident is complicated by the fact that honey bees are living in the tree. They are protected, so the tree cannot just be arbitrarily removed. The hive has to be saved first. We are having an independent arborist come and look at the tree to see if it can be saved, or if there is other damage that might cause further problems for us - and the neighbor.

In other news, we celebrated our 37th anniversary Wednesday by playing pickleball. We decided we wanted to do that since we had to miss Sunday night as we were out of town. We have been playing every Sunday and Wednesday. We went out to dinner Thursday night instead. Webster Groves has a new restaurant called the Sushi Station. While I am not too keen on sushi, I knew they had other things on the menu I would like. I tried the Chicken Teriyaki and Jim had the Salmon Teriyaki. They were both excellent! It was an added bonus that we each only ate half of our meals, so we had leftovers for lunch the next day. We definitely will go back and try some other things. If we have any money left after paying the painters and tree company. Ha!

Clean Up Crew

tree crew

We were fortunate to be able to find a tree service who could come on Saturday and remove the fallen oak. It was an added bonus that he was a couple hundred dollars less expensive than the next higher bid. He came recommended by a neighbor, and his company is insured so we felt comfortable accepting the bid. Our neighbor was having concrete poured for his new walkway and steps on Monday, so it was imperative that the tree be removed before then.

the aftermath

The tree crew made short work of getting the limbs off the car so that it could be moved out of the way. Unfortunately the large limb somewhat crushed the roof of the car. I am not sure it will be feasible for it to be repaired. Speaking from experience, if the insurance company decides to total the car, no one wins. I hope they can fix it. You can see from the top picture that the excitement in the neighborhood drew quite a crowd. I'm sure these guys aren't used to having so many people watch them work. They finished up by mid-afternoon, and nothing was left but all the gouges in the grass.

Mirassou Moscato

It was nice for us, too, that the work was done on Saturday. We had nine people over Sunday afternoon for Easter dinner. It was such a beautiful day that we were able to sit outside and enjoy the sunshine. I mixed up a batch of Moscato Limeade Punch from a recipe that I found on Real Housemoms. It is really good, but I felt like it was a little heavy on the limeade flavor. So I added an additional half bottle of moscato to the pitcher. It went from good to great! In my estimation, Mirassou makes the best moscato, so I always have a couple of bottles in the wine rack. This was a tasty punch recipe that I will be making again.

My niece brought a layered taco dip appetizer, and my nephew brought deer sausage and cheese. I balanced that with a veggie tray. I prepared a ham, scalloped potatoes and rolls, and my sister brought baked beans and deviled eggs. She also made an adorable cake for dessert. I am not a personal fan of peeps, but the cake was really good underneath all the peeping. It was a Hoppy Easter, for sure.

Easter Cake

A Tale of Three Sisters

Once upon a time three Post Oaks stood sentry over the property at 213 S. Maple Avenue. Since they appear in the 1902 photo of our house, I know that they were here long before the house was built. Post Oaks are extremely slow growing trees. When we bought the house in 1987, we named them the Three Sisters. Through the years the Sisters sheltered our home and planting beds, and provided an interesting backdrop when we photographed our children.

In recent years the middle sister began showing signs of her age. We had a tree specialist attach cabling a few years ago in an effort to give her more support. But despite our best efforts earlier this year Middle Sister gave up her post, so to speak. Her large decaying bulk was a magnet for every tree guy from here to Perryville. Oh wait...they were all from Perryville. At any rate, we finally accepted a "reasonable" quote from a younger guy who agreed to remove Sister, a large limb from South Sister which was hanging dangerously over our roof, another large oak in the backyard that had died and a small dead maple from the side yard. Today they came and did the work. Middle Sister has gone to the great mulch pile in the sky, and the two remaining Sisters appear bowed in grief. I hope they also don't die on our watch.

As the weather cools, the boys from Perryville will be back on my street, offering to sell parts of Sister for my fireplace. I paid to have her taken down and I can pay again to get her back as firewood. Only in America...

My Daughter, the Tree Hugger

We had 83 shrubs and one tree delivered today, in preparation for the mass planting this weekend. A crew of 4 guys came this afternoon to do the preparation in the beds, and make sure that everything is ready for 6:30 tomorrow morning when they begin planting. Thank goodness they were here when the delivery truck arrived. They were able to load the plants from the truck into our pickup, which I then drove up and down the alley to the back of our yard for unloading. It was quite a site! After all the men left, I let Kirby, our cockapoo, out in the back yard. A suspicious creature by nature, he immediately decided the weeping cherry tree did not belong in his yard. (Though I suspect it will become his new best friend once he gets used to it.) He literally hopped sideways in shock when he saw the tree and then began frantically barking at it. My daughter is not one to miss an opportunity to tease the dog. She went out in the yard and hugged the tree. In addition to being suspicious, he is also jealous when any of us gives attention to anyone or anything besides him. Her hugging the tree was over the top for him, and he about had a heart attack at the site of her hugging the unknown object. It was pretty amusing, I must say. I can just imagine his reaction when he sees over 700 new items in his yard!