Look what the cat dragged in

A baby bird

It can't even fly yet.

I had just gotten back from taking Chloé to the vet (it's not good news) and stopping at Florosny for the planting soil for the hydrangeas I will plant down where I have been axing out the tree stumps -- wound up buying the plants instead at Tony's suggestion, since at 50% off, they are moving fast; there's only so much I can fit in the car at once, so I'll go back for the planting soil tomorrow -- when I heard Shadow meowing up a storm outside the living room door.

I wondered if she felt sick after her vaccinations, or what.

A moment later, she appears at the door and walks in with something in her mouth. It didn't look like the usual spider mice she and Chloé hunt.

"Shadow! What do you have?" She dropped it at my feet, and I see it tumble out, wings opening. A little bird.

"Sal chat! Leave it alone!" I cried at her, bending to get the little bird before she did again, except, she didn't want it. It didn't appear too injured, either, but it couldn't fly.

I managed to pick it up, roll it into my sweater, grab the hem of the sweater in my mouth so that I could go open the attic trap and get the old mouse cage. I did all that without crushing it.

Then, I went and got one of the nests from our bird nest collection (you never know what will come in handy), filled the little dish with water, found the bird grains -- on hand for occasions like this (I haven't managed to save one yet) -- and collected a handful of grass and leaves.

After a bit, it calmed enough to start peeping, and I could hear a grown bird just outside in the linden tree peeping the same way. So, I took the little one outside under the linden, and they started peeping for all they were worth, back and forth. I can't get up in the tree easily, and I have to run to my sister-in-law's because she picked up her son and my nephew Justin at the airport this morning. The boys were returning from the States, where her son had spent three weeks at my sister's near Philadelphia (Happy Birthday, Elizabeth! Yes, I am getting going), and my son and another friend from the States, Pips (Hi, Lyca! Yes, the boys are working, but the weather is atrocious), are meeting me there.

Sam and Pips are filming for a documentary Pips' mother is producing, telling the story of -- oh, it's a long story! Imagine a former model for Balenciaga from the Philippines, who has also done television, and twice won the carnaval queen in Sao Paolo, the first Philippina to ever win that distinction. They are doing her story. Gives Sam a chance to try his hand at doing something he has dreamed of doing -- filming and making films.

So, now I have the mouse cage out on the deep living room window sill, where the little bird can get fresh air and chirp and peep back and forth with his family. I hope that will encourage him to live until we can figure out how to engineer his reuniting with his family.

It was very windy and rainy today. I wonder if it happened that he (or she) fell out of the nest on a first flight? Which made me wonder if Shadow hadn't actually merely brought it to me, thinking I might be of more help to it than she could be. You never know with her.

I also bought two maples, which I will tell more about later. I am really late.

Really.

....

Allez, Sisyphe! Ca il y est presque!

Baccarat, and probably the last of the stumps

I will remove, behind.

I nearly stopped at 4:23 PM. Enough is enough.

But, I was so close to having this one out. Allez, just one more. You can do it.

At 4:53 PM, half an hour later, it gave under a shove with my foot. It's root system was fairly rotten, like the first ones I had taken out. The others, closer to the pool shed, had vigorous roots, and, naturally, they were still growing a few branches with leaves. These were pretty much defunct.

The time between was spent filling 35 bags with dirt and lining them up very neatly in a nice array.

I was hoping that would impress in a subliminal way, giving a sense of order to my labors.

Never mind.
....

Another one bites the dust... No! Not a finger...

A stump.

(You can see the red wedge stuck in the previous one.)

The three in this picture were the three biggest and toughest, so far. There are three left, not two as I would have led you to believe had you been paying attention to what I wrote before. I lost track of one. One will stay in that far corner. I'll just devitalize it, since it is behind the pool shed, which looks even more lovely now that it is exposed. Maybe I'll paint it black with tar. It actually looks nice, tar. Sort of modern, mat, goes-with-everything basic black.

The other two are at the other end, and I have to get rid of a lot of dirt and haul it in bags to the dump before I can even get close to removing them. I worked from the first stump in one direction, knowing it would bury in the first two at the other end.

The dirt has to go anyway because it is not good quality, nor is it compatible with the shrubs going in. Hydrangeas, like azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons, require an acidic soil. I bring (as you know) bags of it in. There is already a red azalea (see the entry Balenciaga party dresses) and a light pink rhododendron alongside the pool. I'd love to put in the white Azalea mollis I saw a few weeks ago at Florosny.

I'll have to complement the few hydrangeas I have with a few more to fill in that space along the wall. I have one climbing hydrangea, and I will have to get a few more of those, and perhaps some ivy to grow -- in a controlled manner -- along with it. Perhaps some Escallonia 'Iveyi', too. Good for screening, it can be clipped quite close to a wall, like ivy, and it blooms in the summer.

And perhaps a Robinia pseudoacacia 'Frisia' -- Golden Locust -- alongside the pool shed. You can keep them pruned small.

But, that might be overkill with the fir tree.

We'll see.

Got to feed the boy before he goes off to his preparation for the French bac oral exam tomorrow morning.

By the way, the rain went away. It isn't a glorious day at all moments, but it is mercifully cooler than it has been, the sun comes out and cheers one, and, so, maybe we will be spared our usual July monsoon.
....

Then again

Maybe not.

Oh, I don't know. You know what they say, "No pain, no gain."

....

Rain, finally

It's raining. Forced work stoppage.

Not such a bad thing, maybe. I don't have many more body parts I can sacrifice. You should see my boo-boos. I look like an 8-year-old boy.

A reckless 8-year-old boy.

I watered heavily the past two days because the lawn was parched and turning the colors of the inland California hills, the flowering plants in the urns shriveling and turning the same, the more delicate plants, like the clematis, whimpering. It had been some time since we had had rain. Three weeks, perhaps, with temperatures fairly high.

Yesterday the breeze stiffened. Audouin had told me, coming home from the hospital, and seeing that I still had the benches from the Voyager down by the motorcycles for my dump runs with Sam to dispose of all the branches and trunks from the conifers, and other mystery trees, I was taking down, that rain was expected. It came this morning, and it is raining steadily.

Oh. I just thought of something. Are these the rains of July settling in above us?

Please, no. Not this year. Please.
....

Not on your life, but is it worth a pinkie?

You bet.

I hope I won't have to tell you what it's not worth.

....

My new tool

That's my new tool, with the yellow handle and green head. Thierry, at Florosny, of course, said they didn't have any gasoline powered chainsaws, when I raced in before they closed for lunch today. "It's not the season," he said, giving me that look, and asked me what I wanted it for. I had just officially killed the electric chainsaw, although I think Audouin might be able to mess with the cord and make it work.

I told him. If I thought the look was bad, it got worse, "That's not the tool for the job. Nothing eats up a chain like dirt."

"I dig around the roots first," I sort of lied because I sort of dig around the roots.

He told me that I don't want a gas chainsaw for this job. I believe in Florosny. They (sort of) believe in me. He is at least willing to discuss the right tool to remove a stump, asking why I didn't just devitalize it (because I want to remove them, that's why) with a woman, even if he thinks I am nuts. He knows me, though.

The tool is a something or another that's halfway between an ax and a mallet. It even came with a wood splitter (which is now stuck in the stump... I might explain later. Let's just leave it at an expression of my severe frustration for now), but he said you only use one in the company of another one. I bought, of course, another one (it is not stuck in the stump; I was not quite that frustrated). It also came with a pair of protective glasses. I did not use those. I am not that smart. Besides, what I needed was a pinkie protector.

I have dug around one of the last three remaining. That's enough fun for today. Time for a shower and a ride on my motorcicle to the gym for a little relaxing work out.

Ha!

One thing is absolutely certain: tearing out the conifers, brambles and overgrown, out of control ivy back behind the fir tree really helps punch it out against the blue sky. That is a big plus, since it is a nice tree.

Before, it just got lost against the tangle of green and ropey ivy.

See what I mean?
....

What's missing from this picture, or...

How to define a loss

or a win

July 1

Or, what's a loss and what's a win, and what's just a salvage?

It's all a matter of how you look at it. It's a negotiation. A surprise negotiation. The very best kind, the one for which you aren't in the least prepared. The make-the-best-of-the-situation sort or negotiation, when a July 1 start date for the work is... -- after remaking the world politically, socially, environmentally with the construction manager -- is... c'mon, you can do it, you can give us a date... finally July 15.

July 15. Significant date in France. Things only ever start on significant dates; have you ever noticed? In this case, it's the day after the 14th of July, Bastille Day. It would make no sense whatsoever to start on the 10th or the 11th, for example, because that would be right before the weekend with the 14th, which falls on a Monday, and is a national holiday. The 15th, that's the day.

When, naturellement, it will be the 16th because, well, vous comprenez bien, it just isn't possible to get to work the day after a national holiday, so why don't we just make it the 21st? After all, what's the good of working a partial week when we can start and make it a full week's start.

But, that's not even the official start date for the work. That will be on September 1st, at la rentrée. The very best time to start because that's when everything starts. Really the best time, taking all things into consideration.
....

That was July 1.

Joachim called a few days later to say that they had cancelled a small project they had lined up (voilà pourquoi la rentrée serait très certainement mieux et plus avantageux) and would be here on July 15 with the full crew, all three of them.

Well, now, that was looking more like a real win.

To be scrupulously fair, he was even anxious to start on the 14th -- the holiday -- but I wasn't sure that we wouldn't finally be going to Brest to meet up with the Vayssets and Justin at Christine's.

....

Crying Uncle?

This one might be too much

even for me

It's 10:43 AM, July 1.

I am waiting for the contractor.

The contractor is not here yet.

I cannot get back to work on my stump until he gets here. Audouin asked what I used to get the other big and heavily rooted one out.

"What I had available." I was definitely being pouty (bad weekend for the step-family from hell, and I wasn't over it).

"But! You can't do it with what you have. (Oh? I hadn't realized). Have you gone to price chainsaws?" That was a submission to my statement that we need a more powerful chainsaw, not to go and rent them every time we do, in which time you rapidly spend vastly more than the purchase price of a decent Stihl 14" chainsaw of your very own.

"No, I'll manage." He insisted. I changed the subject. I will go price chainsaws, if I can ever stop waiting and get out of the house.

When will the contractor finally get here? Do I have a message I haven't received apologizing and saying it will be this afternoon, certainly this afternoon, after lunch?

Ah, well, my Ghislaine de Féligonde is blooming again. The one with more sun much more than the one in the protection of the weeping mulberry tree. I guess I'll prune some of its branches to give the rose more light.
....