There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight

Better than drugs.

Josie was over for hamburgers cheerfully bringing a bagful of fireworks bought at Molly Brown's in Franklin County, because where she lives they are illegal and she hasn't shot any off in 18 years, and while we drank wine and had dinner there were plenty of things to be sad about, God knows, but always our eye was on the explosive treats we'd get at after sunset and that we used to get as kids  back when sunburned skin and playing with gunpowder and matches were normal. We waxed nostalgic about sparklers, sorry we didn't have any, until I looked into my stash (of course I have a stash: a gross of bottle rockets) and found one box of six blue sparklers.

We also had fountains, fireballs, snakes, rats, roman candles, a PT boat, and noisemakers. Carefully we gathered up a pail of sand and a bucket of water and Bic lighters, and carried our treats out on a silver tray into the moonlit night and proceeded to tease out all the fuses, light them, run, and watch them explode and shiver multicolored lights. One item fell and shot sideways, starting two separate fires in the meadow that caught and burned and rapidly spread, but I waded into the tall grass with the water bucket and doused 'em, a heroine and a legend in my own mind. Why, after half an hour it hardly mattered whether Josie's sisters insulted her and got her kicked off the family property, or that I will never again hear my mom's voice on the phone.

We came back in as different, lighter-hearted people (who incidentally stank of gunpowder). Happy Fourth! Enjoy it while you can. Families are overrated.

Meet My Fireplace

Picturesque, its native stone dominating the living room, I've never shown you my fireplace because it doesn't cross my mind. Last lighted in 1991 as testified by the tenants before me, it blasted hot soot throughout the cabin,

requiring an actual disaster team for clean-up, and the charring underneath the mantel from that hot mess is still visible today.

Estimate for re-lining and repair: $8000, and the landlord wouldn't pay, or for the cost of running and installing a new propane pipe for a gas fire. Because critters came down the chimney and died behind the glassed-in hearth--here covered by a blue wintertime sheet of custom-cut insulation--I had the chimney sealed. The huge crack up the front was there when I moved in, and I shuddered in its draft for 13 winters, until this very day when I caulked it with caulk that's white when first applied but turns transparent. I also filled holes in the native rock, unworried about resale value. This cabin was not built for year-round occupancy and some say the chimney was faulty from the first.

Fireplaces are wonderful, so romantic--and they suck the heat out of the room, require careful maintenance and tending and the bringing in of wood, and I wish mine were the fireplace it aspired to be, but it isn't.

Drought's First Casualty

I heard "CRAACK!" and turned just in time to see this fully-leafed branch from the huge twin oak peel off and land, completely blocking our only access road. Thank God I wasn't under there and my car was garaged. My neighbor and I were now trapped so I phoned the handymen at once. They said, first thing in the morning. With time to inspect it I tried to find out what had gone wrong with a branch that looked healthy.

What looks like interior rot is the tree's heartwood, and in any tree it's dead already, having done its job. As you know, a tree feeds itself through the wood just beneath the bark, and its concentric rings are what hold it up. It's like a hollow metal pole; its strength doesn't depend on its core. I didn't see real rot. And a sick or bug-infested branch wouldn't have such healthy greenery.

It was, however, a horizontal branch on a very old tree, richly weighted with other leafy branches, after two consecutive years of severe drought. In June we didn't get a full inch of rain here (the city got a bit more than we did). Our towns cancelled Independence Day fireworks for the first time ever because of the fire hazard, and I hope the kids shooting off fireworks for fun aren't doing it anywhere near our dry-as-dust woods and fields.

Where the branch peeled away

Next morning the handymen chainsawed the branch and also amputated the branch from the redbud across the lane that broke beneath the weight of the oak branch. The twin oaks must be among the oldest trees on the property; they are 80 feet high at least and a glorious sight as you drive up toward the house. Branches do fall from them sometimes, but usually only dead ones. Hope not to see any more like this.