Blowin' in the wind

The aborist and his crew were supposed to have returned to our house yesterday to work on our back yard but they returned today instead...at 8:00 a.m. I shot this picture out of our bedroom window, the one that looks out over the back yard. Incidentally, our bedroom is on the second floor. Notice how I'm looking up to get him in the camera's field of vision.

For my friends living in Europe, Antarctica, and Australia, we have giant mosquitoes here, so our windows require screens. Some mosquitoes seem to measure almost 3" at times--7 or 8 cm. long. Some of our bugs in our backyard even eat the screens! That is a fact. Now I imagine that Australian bugs are at least 5 times that long, and there's no telling what they eat. Becky, perhaps you can enlighten us on that issue. Of course, there are no bugs in Antarctica; the only antennae you'll find there are the ones that Ryan, our friendly glaciologist, is erecting with his friends. Now you say to yourself, "Why this discussion of screens in the middle of winter? Moreover, what do screens have to do with this blog?" There is a perfectly good reason for this detour in my story. You see, due to the screens on the window, the clarity of my video is dulled.

OK, now that my disclaimer is out of the way, let me return to my little story. I have affectionately named the kid in the tree "Monkey Boy." I mean no disrespect but he is really good at climbing trees. So, Monkey Boy is up in the tree when the wind picks up. It had been forecast by the weather man just like the ice storm. I don't know about you but my tree climbing days ended around 6th grade when we moved from Columbus, Ohio, where we had the most fantastic tree-climbing trees ever. Frankly, I never climbed very high because I had to do it when my over-protective mother wasn't looking. However, can you imagine climbing that high on a windy day with a chainsaw? Needless to say, the crew packed it in soon after I shot this video.

They plan to return tomorrow but rain is in the forecast.

You know, if enough wind blows we won't even need tree trimmers. Mother Nature will simply take care of those Widow Makers herself.