Climbing on the Soapbox

Is it just me?  Why do people buy a house in the mountains with lovely trees all around and then within months, they've cut them all down?  We're not talking about diseased or damaged or broken trees.  Or trees within 10 feet of your house, or growing crooked.  We're talking about healthy, straight native trees that have been around already for 25 plus years, maybe even 50 years or more.   And I really don't want to hear "but they might fall on the house" which has also been right there with those trees for the last however many years.   Really ticks me off.   Passed a house down the way today and they were removing a gorgeous tree of some sort that has to be at least 85 feet tall and not a thing wrong with it, along with several other smaller trees.  

We also have a new neighbor just next to our lower lot who thinks the same way.  He's hinting at wanting us to agree for him to remove some large trees on our lot.  Guess what the chances are of that happening?  I've already plainly told him I'm a true tree hugger.

Errrrrrrr........just upsets me something fierce. 

Now, that being said, y'all have a good day and take care.  

Random Thoughts

Our weather is still quite warm and above normal but the humidity levels have dropped.  It's really gorgeous outside now.  As I've been driving around the last week I've been reminded of just how much I love living here in the north Georgia mountains.  I look at the valleys and hills and it just makes me feel good.  My husband and I sit in the mornings with our coffee and talk about how the foliage on the trees changes. 

Not this year but the view from our deck

We love our bird feeders and I'm an avid birder also, so we keep tabs on the activity around the house every day.  We've had both male and female rose breasted grosbeaks this week along with summer tanagers.  I still have at least one ruby throat hummingbird.  

We've had some erosion control/drainage work done lately.  Its the kind of job that couldn't be delayed.  We live on the side of a mountain and our lot is quite sloped so when a small erosion site develops it has to be stopped immediately.  We had several new french drains put in along with drain pipes from them down the hill.  We also had covered gutters put on the back of the house to match the ones on the front of the house.  We've not had a lot of rain since the job was finished so we'll see how it works.  

As much as I hated to do it, we also had to have some saplings removed and a couple of larger trees that had developed what I call root rot.  Its where the trees develop cavities near the ground and weaken the tree.  One was on our downhill lot and was threat to the neighbor's house should it fall, so it came down.  The other one was beside our driveway and would block us in should it fall.  Truthfully, if you didn't know the trees were removed you'd never know.  

I got a new laptop several months ago and still haven't transferred the photos from the old one.  Therefore, I don't have many pictures to choose from to add here.  And for whatever reason I haven't taken many pictures lately.

We visited Crater Lake earlier this summer

Hope you're all doing well.   Y'all take care.