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 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.

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.

Vince took the recycling to the recycling center. It came to 51 pounds worth of cardboard, plastic, tin and aluminum. This accumulated since we last made the trip in early December.  We calculated our recycling keeps about 60 bags of trash from ending up in the Middle Point landfill here in Rutherford County. We produce about a bag of trash per week.

Here’s a piece from the Murfreesboro Post (06-12-07) about the landfill.

In Jan. 1988, ROMAC sold its 200 acres to BFI for $10 million.

“I was stunned and realized that the political world was a pretty rough place,” Bullen said. “That event was the last that anyone expected. … People were totally stunned.”

BFI opened Jefferson Pike (Middle Point) landfill’s gates to local trash in the spring of 1988 with an expected lifetime of 20 years.

I spent a couple of hours Saturday cleaning up the road leading into our neighborhood while Vince was at work. I filled seven large 55 gallon trash bags full of about seven months worth of other people’s garbage. I say seven months worth because that’s about when Vince and I last cleaned it up.

We’re doers.

A lot of people stopped to thank me, which was awesome. One guy took the trash bags away. Awesome. Another guy stopped and said he had “hoped” him and his son could get out there and do it when it got warm enough. One guy thanked me and told me he had “hoped” the county would do more to keep it clean. It got me thinking a lot about hope and how little people’s hope gets things done. If you think about it, you see the most desperate expressions of hope in some of the worst neighborhoods where I guess everyone is collectively hoping that someone else will get things done and make things better. And hope never gets it done.

Besides the abundance of Marlboro cigarette packs, McDonalds and Taco Bell trash, and various beer bottles, the most common items were numerous 16 oz. plastic bottles of Mt. Dew and Chick-fil-A garbage. What kind of person tosses their garbage out of their car window in their own neighborhood?

I got my answer. Hopers.

Scattered along the road were various pieces of mail that all went back to one man who lives several houses down from us. After I was done, I drove by the address to see who it was, and I was shocked to see it was the guy who thanked me and talked to me about hoping the county government would do its job.

Between the Mt. Dew, Chick-fil-A garbage and this guy’s personal trash, I don’t think our neighborhood could handle seven more months of hope. In the end, it took a doer to clean up this mess.

Someone please get that lady out of the FEMA trailer.

Watch this video on [shorts] of Al Gore posted just minutes ago on YouTube by WarnerBrosRecords on the eve of the Iowa caucuses. The video and timing of the post raises Gore’s environmental cause as Democrats and Republicans face voters tomorrow in Iowa.

In the video, Al Gore talks about “the seven point pledge.” He stopped counting, but there is an inaudible moment in the video. What did he say?

“I pledge: 1) to demand my nation join an international treaty within two years to cut global warming polution by 90% in developed countries and by more than half world wide. Now the second part of the pledge is a little more personal. 2) I pledge to reduce my CO2 polution as much as I can and offset the rest in order to become carbon neutral. The other parts of the pledge focuses on things like renewable energy, conservation, planting trees, and protecting rainforests, fighting for legislation, new laws, new policies to greatly increase energy efficiency. Also, on the personal side the focus is on my home, my school, my work, my place of worship, [—-inaudible—-] to make sure those changes are underway there as well.”
[YOUTUBE: Live Earth - The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis - Al Gore - 01-02-07]