Vince is going to pick up three Yoshino Cherry trees and two Red Maples for us to plant in the yard. I think that ought to do as far as trees for the house. We may remove a couple of cedar trees that are getting wind damage. We have about 15 cedars that were part of the original growth on the land.

Here are a couple of pictures of the sugar maple and pin oak buds. I didn’t take photos last year to compare these to. I wonder if the exceptional drought conditions last year harmed them in any way. Throughout the summer, I kept 5 gallon buckets with small holes in them on the mulch around their base. I’d fill them with water every other day or so that would then take about 30 minutes to slowly release the water.

Since we don’t have the Jeep anymore, Vince is going to see if he can borrow a truck from his sister who lives a few houses down from us. We have a rough idea where the trees will be planted, but we’ll figure out exactly where once they get here.

The pot roast is slowly cooking in the crock pot, so it’s chicken and beer for lunch.

The rain is moving back in and the thunder is getting closer and closer. We sure can use the rain, though. 

I can see buds forming on the pin oaks. The buds on the sugar maple are getting larger. I’ll try to get photos after the rain passes. I wish I had a few photos from last year to compare them to this year. I’m concerned about what the exceptional drought conditions last year might have done to them despite us keeping them watered.

Vince had to buy a half terabyte hardrive to store the video converted from all the super 8 cannisters my family had stored away in various boxes. As a child, I remember a couple of times watching them projected on a big screen in the garage. Since then, they’ve sat unusable, tucked away and vaguely remembered.

This Easter, I plan to surprise my family as we gather in Carthage with DVD versions of several hours of precious family memories. Like many post WWII families, there are soundless flickering images of travels through America’s heartland. And then there are more recent video of things like me moonwalking to Michael Jackson records in the 1980s… 

Imagine if Bill and Hillary Clinton brought their daughter to the church of a white racist spewing hate for 20+ years, got married by him, gave him money year after year, had him baptize little Chelsea, and then put him on Hillary’s campaign.

Would you vote to help put an end to racism in America or would you brush these actions aside in favor of yet another sip of the sermon?

Aunt B. has another eulogy meme for WKRN, this one following the departure of our political blogger Adam Kleinheider. I responded there, so go chat it up. Her post comes as we launch the new WKRN.com and Nashville Is Talking.

Here are some photos I took after the rain this morning. One of the things I like about comparing them to photos from about three weeks ago is seeing things wake from their winter slumber.

The Green Mountain boxwood hedge is loaded with buds just like this same time last year. A year ago the hedge was about 2 1/2 feet tall. After the April ‘07 freeze, I had to cut the hedge down to two inch stubs. They are now over a foot tall and will hopefully double that this year.