Trees

The reason I fell in love with this house was not because of the house, but the yard.  My trees are like family members to me.  We had been saying we needed to get our trees trimmed for the last three years, since we had not done so since we moved into this house.  But deep down, the thought of my beautiful, tall family members getting touched in any way sort of turned my stomach.  But I finally had to give in.  We finally got our trees trimmed almost a month ago.  I was totally dreading it.  But Bob's Tree Service was ultra professional, and Bob Jr. taught me more about trees in the short 10 minutes he was here to get the crew going than I have learned my whole life.  We had explained that we didn't want branches cut off unless they absolutely had to be.  We have 16 post oaks, one cedar-elm and the Chinese Pistachio we planted when Gabriel was baptized.  It took a five-man crew 6 hours to finish, and the trees looked so healthy and beautiful when they left that I was actually glad we had it done.  Especially now that I know we don't have to do it again (or can afford it again) for another 10 years.

Here are some of the things we found out during this ordeal:

-Post oak groves are very special, because the only way they will grow is with a big water source underground.  You cannot go to a nursery and and buy an already-growing post oak.  It has to grow from an acorn, supplied by its water source.

-Many of our tress are over 100 years old.  This is a picture of the biggest, oldest tree in our yard.

-Never plant something around a tree that is going to circle its trunk, like ivy (or in our case, Asian jasmine).  It will eventually kill it, because it stops the sap from moving up and down the tree.  I have been wanting to pull up the Asian jasmine for other reasons besides this one, but now I need to be on a mission.  I have a strong desire to find the people who decided that planting Asian Jasmine and monkey grass was a good idea and make them tear it up, roots and all, until it is GONE.

-One of our trees (the lone cedar elm, pictured above) had mistletoe growing in big clumps way high up.  Even though people make a big deal about mistletoe being poisonous, it's more like poison ivy in that it causes a reaction in some people, and others it doesn't.  Even though they cleared it all out, my dad has informed me that its really hard to get rid of and will probably come back.  As you can see, this poor guy has the tree form of scoliosis.  But they trimmed a bunch from it's left side so that the stress wouldn't be so bad from now on.

-And finally, about our newest addition.  We picked out a good Chinese Pistachio.  We planted it in February, 2007.  It has gone from being just a little taller than me (probably 6 feet) to about 18 feet tall.  It has the place of honor in the center of the yard, and has become the tree we decorate the most for holidays.  It makes a perfect little brother to its taller siblings.

I couldn't imagine living somewhere that had nothing but non-fruit bearing pear trees and crepe myrtles.  There is nothing than makes me happier than lying in the grass and looking up at these giants, and all the life they hold.  The broken sunlight coming through the leaves, a breeze blowing the leaves hear and there.  Any season their beauty never ceases to amaze me.                       

Getting caught up.

My goodness where have I been?  The last thing I posted was Christmas pics?!?!?!?  Good grief!

Well, for one thing Jojo had surgery.  I had a big long post halfway finished, then decided not to post it.  He had some issues with his boy parts, they also found a hernia when they were doing the surgery.  I didn't post what I had written out of respect to his privacy.  But since I had already asked many people to pray for him and us, and told them why, I decided to post it.  Hopefully he'll understand why and forgive me one day.  The whole episode was enormously stressful to me, but also made me realize how many wonderful people we have in our lives, people that truly lifted me up throughout the whole ordeal.  We were glad and thankful that he came through the surgery fine, but were a little upset to find out there were some developmental issues, and the doctor just didn't know whether everything will be ok for sperm production on that side or not.  So we decided to just have faith that it will be alright.  Mostly we were just glad it's over, and he seems to be feeling fine and healing from the surgery well.  We have a follow up visit next week to make sure.

Some of the things I remember from the day of surgery:

We were looking for things to lighten our spirits that morning, and laughed when the whole topic of "giggle juice" came up.  It's the stuff they give the kids having surgery to drink that relaxes them before they whisk them away from their parents to give them the full blown anesthetic.  They told us that they might be able to give it to him in the room we were waiting in, or they might take him to the Giggle Juice Room to do it.  Since Joel's favorite movie right now is Willie Wonka, the Giggle Juice Room seemed like something right out of the movie, and therefore needed to be avoided at all costs!  After the giggle juice was given to him he was supposed to stay really still and not walk around because he might be dizzy or fall down.  So we were relying on the TV in the room to keep him still.  They had turned it off of cartoons and left the channel on ESPN for some crazy reason.  I was about to go and complain, but then we realized that Joel was loving watching the college basketball highlights.  The boy loves all sports already.

While the surgery was going on, I walked the LONG walk down to Starbucks to get some coffee and something to eat, since I'd had nothing before we left the house at 6 am that morning.  I was ok walking down there, but for some reason walking back to the surgery waiting room it all hit me what was happening.  I felt like I was having my insides ripped out, to the point where I almost didn't make the walk back to the surgery waiting room.  The bond between a mother and her child is a very powerful thing indeed.

They had told us that once the surgeon came out to talk with us that it would be a half hour or so before we could go back to see Joel.  We turned around to go back to our seats after talking with the doctor, and they were calling us to go back.  When we walked around the corner, we expected to see a very sleepy and/or groggy boy.  What we saw was rather shocking:  a screaming boy being held by two nurses while another tried to reattach the pulse monitor he had ripped off of his finger.  Sigh.  Our little spitfire.  Even after I took over holding him and tried to comfort him, the screaming and ripping out of stuff continued.  One of the nurses finally thought of putting the monitor on his toe with his sock over it instead.  Problem solved!  Then some morphine, and finally all was quieter.

He was still pretty dopey on the way home from the hospital, which I'm sure was a good thing.  After about three hours, though, he was trying to jump around and we were having to make sure he stayed still.  The rest of the weekend he seemed good.  He would play like normal and then we wouldn't see him all of a sudden.  We'd find him curled up on his bed or even the floor, fast asleep.  Poor baby.  But after the weekend his energy level went back to normal.

I found out through this that I believe much more in prayer than I ever realized.  I had asked so many people to pray for Joel that it took me almost the entire time we were in recovery (2 hours) to get everyone texted that he was ok.  I also turned his name in for the prayer list at our parish.  I didn't do it in time, though, and his name wasn't called until the week after the surgery.  Oops.  But that's ok, prayer is always good and accepted from anyone, at anytime.

When they saw how worried and upset I was before the surgery, many people told me that only one testicle is needed to have children, but my gosh people, he's only three years old.  What if something happens to the other side, since we know he's going to play sports?  They're not like females who have this huge supply of eggs.  They only have TWO, and now the ability of one is in question.  But both my boss and my brother, in different ways, encouraged me by saying basically the same thing:  Sperm, and therefore Life, will find a way.  It's how we're wired.