July 5, 2012

Late on Independence Day afternoon about 1/4 of the sweetgum eased down onto the ground, with loud crack, but no other warning, in dead calm weather, without a cause. Maybe a fat bird landed in exactly the wrong place. The limb and all its branches were green. Sweetgums are a queer tree anyway. I fear the whole thing must go now, for all its branches are on one side, and I imagine a heavy rain or an ice storm pulling it right out of the ground onto DJ’s roof. It took out my little magnolia, and roses, and time will tell what else, though, of course, I should be noting all it missed, notably my house, which anyone looking as it fell would have thought would be a goner.

Got my chainsaw out of mothballs, oiled it up, and went to town on the downed tree. I would have got it cleaned up, too, except one big limb had too much pressure on it, and vised the saw in the cut so I couldn’t get it out. There is a sculpture in my back yard of a chainsaw balanced perfectly in a fallen tree. Called enormous Ben, the tree guy, who said he would clean it up tonight, but did not. Evening and drizzle begin to fall, so this drama is carried into a further day. I like chainsawing, as it turns out.

Cataclysmically tired– maybe the heat, maybe the chainsawing and log lugging. Painted a little, and well, and gossiped with Jolene and Madison. Madison and I decided it’s a bad idea to belong to any local arts organization that is run by a woman. That measure of, or that kind of, power turns the local girls into conspiracy-sniffing, micro-managing martinets.