Leaf Me Alone

I am a tree hugger, but not a crazy tree hugger. I wouldn't climb a tree in protest and challenge a man with a chain saw, mostly because I'm afraid of heights. If you could see the amount of toilet paper we go through around here, it would be obvious that I love trees for more than one reason. You can't wipe your ass without killing a few trees. Rarely have I felt good about seeing a tree cut down or die, but there have been exceptions, like the orange trees that I had planted outside my kitchen door. I did love those trees at first. It was great to be able to open the door, reach out, and pick fresh oranges to squeeze for breakfast. But even those trees had to go. It was the day I opened the door to fetch a few oranges to squeeze into my vodka, and I was confronted by the beady eyes of a family of rats feasting on ripe oranges, that I decided to cut them down.

For the last fifteen years that I have lived in my present home, I have battled the acacia trees that grew in the lawyers parking lot behind me. If it wasn't for my swimming pool all would have been fine with the trees. The problem is that three times a year they would drop crap into my pool. first millions of tiny yellow things in the spring, then little spiral seed pods in the summer, followed by the crescent shaped leaves every fall. It was a mess that required constant pool cleaning, and cleaning is not one of my strong suits.

Well hooooray! The trees have died! The first one died a few years ago after a hurricane. The second one died last month, dropping the final dead leaves of it's life in my pool, never to foul the blue waters again. No more clogged filters, no more diving into the pool and coming up covered with tiny yellow things, no more constant skimming of leaves. Now all I have to do is get the guy who owns the property behind me to cut the dead tree down. Otherwise, in the next big wind, I'll have the whole tree in my pool, and that's even harder to clean up.