Easter Weeds & Trolls

[photo from thefuntimesguide.com]

I spent a lovely day in the yard today, something I thought Jesus would appreciate when he came strolling by to tell me Happy Easter.

After years of watching it grow larger and larger, we finally cut a huge vein of ivy off the giant sequoia in the back yard. That tree is around 60 years old, give or take a few. It was planted as a sapling, brought home in a milk carton from somewhere by my grandparents.

Rather than let the ivy go any longer, I found the tree saw, the ax, hatchet, hammer and chisel and went to work. After much tedious hand-sawing, the vein was finally cut in two. Then I gently chiseled it away from the bark to get it loose. Then I went to town on that sucker with the hammer. That felt great.

Like being in a batting cage - but guaranteed contact. I beat the SHIT out of that parasitic piece of crap. Then took an ax to the base of it. The tree looks relatively unharmed - just the ivy was torn apart and after a while, hopefully what's left of it up in the tree will die off.

Enjoying the beautiful weather, I continued finding things to do around the yard and ended up in the front of the house pulling out the weeds & clover from under the oak tree - a tree started from an acorn by my grandmother, and now it's huge - about 2' in diameter and beautiful. We do love our trees here on Green Acres.

Unfortunately, the troll next door is a tree hater. We call her The Troll because there's really no better nickname for her. She's short, squat, waddles her way from her house to her car, and instead of speaking in a normal human-like voice, she barks words in a grating, accusatory fashion, looking for the biggest Billy Goats Gruff.

Working on the side of the tree that faces her house, I had my ass pointed in that direction when someone behind me said, rather cheerfully, "Working on Easter?!" and without knowing it was her, I responded in-kind and said "Of course!" Because, well, who gives a shit that it's Easter, and this isn't really work, it's just something to do that will help the tree and the azaleas, but I didn't get into all that.

When I realized it was The Troll, I turned my ass back toward her face and returned my attention to the weeds, ignoring her as she, for the umpteenth time, said, "We really have to do something about this tree! Look at the mess!"

The mess, I believe, is the leaves the tree drops that inevitably end up in her driveway from time to time, though I've never considered it a mess. They make for a wonderful mulch layer wherever they end up. And they actually look kinda nice.

Anyway, leaves are unacceptable to The Troll. Let's call her Sandy, which is her real name. Sandy The Troll. If she had her way, she'd pave over everything green. A few years ago, instead of pulling the weeds on her side of the property, she shot weed poison all over them and killed not only the weeds but two lovely azaleas I'd planted a little too close to the property line.

But all that aside, I'm actually happy to get the tree pruned - it needs it. What troubles me is that she can never pleasantly talk to me about it. She *always* has to make shitty, passive-aggressive comments, like, "I'm sure your mother doesn't want me trimming your tree," as she waddles her lazy ass into her house.

Is it so hard to say, "Hey, we love hanging our piñatas in your tree for the kids' birthdays [which they do, the hypocrites], but would you mind getting it pruned someday soon?" How could I argue with that? But nooooooooooooo.

Every single damn time she sees me, she complains about "the mess" or some other problem, like one day she was upset that a family of birds happened to roost on a limb directly over her shitty car, and appropriately, they shat all over it - a beautiful carpet of guano from the roof all down the side of her door. I couldn't have been happier to have birds living in our tree.

If she had her way, she'd have the tree cleaved in half, right down the property line, even though without it, her concrete back yard would be a good 20 degrees hotter in the summer. What a dumbshit.

The bitch of all this was, it was late in the day when I started on the weeds and I was only going to clear those closest to the azaleas, but as a gift to her (and to prevent another round of poisoning), I pulled them all, starting with her side of the tree.

On top of that, this troll waddles her way down the street every Sunday to go to church, and she probably feels pretty good about herself for being a good Catholic. Unfortunately, she hasn't retained many good Christian values, like Love Thy Neighbor, or Don't Be a Shitty Bitch.

Regardless, I remain optimistic. We didn't think Crazy Neighbor Bob would ever be out of our lives, but his days are numbered. Now Sandy The Troll is waddling around that house all by her lonesome, retired from her many years under the local bridge, and I'm betting that she'll be long gone before we ever have to worry about her getting anywhere near our beautiful oak tree.