Tag: log piles

Lingering Scarecrows

This afternoon Flo, Dillon, and Ellie needed to return to the hospital for a final check. Becky and Ian drove them there.

Before they departed I photographed our grandson-in-law with his 25 hour old daughter Ellie. Despite having slept very little over the last 36 hours Dillon was setting off back to the Princess Anne’s Hospital.

Jackie and I went for a forest drive.

Log piles alongside the road just outside Ripley

were earmarked presumably for buyers.

As we approached Bisterne on the Ringwood Road we fell behind a steam traction engine. Eventually Jackie managed to pass it and drive further up the road

in order for me to disembark and lie in wait for the slow moving vehicle. A white jet plane’s trail crossed the steam clouds emanating from the chimney from an earlier age.

For reasons of various more pressing priorities we had missed the annual Bisterne Scarecrow tour this year, but further along the road we enjoyed two of the lingering competitors:

the Very Hungry Caterpillar,

and Ham Sweet Ham.

Tess visited with Poppy to meet Ellie and her parents, bringing a splendid bouquet of flowers and various other presents.

They were unable to stay for this evening’s Ashley’s fish and chips and Garner’s pickled onions, with which I drank more of the Bordeaux; Ian drank Morreti beer; Dillon, cider; and Flo Fruit cordial.

They Left Their Mark

We have an old saw that states “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight, red sky in the morning shepherd’s warning”. This certainly rang true today. Jackie had only a few minutes to photograph a

rosy pink dawn. Afterwards there was barely a tinge left for Florence sculpture’s portrait.

On this decidedly dank, dismal, day, Aaron, Mark, and Steve lopped two trees and removed another,

leaving their initials on the stump.

In a little more than half a day, the A.P. Maintenance team carried out this task, leaving the garden as if they had never been here except for

the neatly piled debris on the back drive. Because Aaron’s van is still in hospital they could not remove all this until it is back on the road.

This process is well choreographed, each man knowing his specific tasks.

Mark wielded the chain saw, first from the shed roof, then whilst climbing the trees.

Because the first holly seriously threatened the shed it was cut down and shaved to the level of the initialled image above.

Aaron received Mark’s cut branches, sometimes catching them from him as they were tossed down;

he and Steve gathered them together

and toted them down the garden to the neatly stacked piles.

The second holly and a sweet smelling bay tree were left standing but considerably reduced in height.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s spicy pasta arrabbiata with minced beef, followed by unusually spicy custard tart which, had she remembered to include the extra prepared ingredient, would have been pumpkin pie, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Shiraz.