TIM...BER!

The hills are alive with with the sounds of wood chippers and weed whackers. ('Strimming' is such a genteel British term, whereas we Americans just bludgeon the weeds to the ground.) The guys came this morning to bring us into compliance with fire regulations regarding maintaining a 'defensible space' against fires. They have been working all day to make a 15 foot wide border around the two acres of six foot tall weeds behind the fence at the top of our garden. I'm glad for them that the weather has cooled off. In fact, it is a perfect day.

We live amidst acres of open fields some of which have been mowed, and some whose owners are absentee and may not have gotten the word that the deadline was moved up by two weeks this year. Although one of the worst offenders is the City of Santa Rosa, which is theoretically maintaining the sliver of 'open space' next to the subdivision which has been under construction for three years. They put up a sign anyway...a sign which also informs us that our dogs, who used to run free through an undeveloped grassland must now be kept on a leash. When there was still a discernible trai,l everybody just ignored the sign, but now the path has become obliterated by thistles and grass and is impassable. i

Next door, they are  throwing redwood branches into the wood chipper after cutting the tree down. It  must have been a hundred feet tall, so even though it was dead, it is still  being turned into a very large pile of beautiful redwood mulch. I'm pleased to have a sunset view without a dead tree in the middle of it, and I'm surety neighbors are pleased be rid of a tree which could do serious damage to their house if it fell on it. 

OilMan has just sneaked off to have a beer with Hector and Jorge who, by the sound of things, have finished weed whacking....