BROWN IS THE COLOR OF DEATH

It's absolutely a B-E-A-utiful day today in Central Arkansas.  Cool temperatures.  Not a cloud in the bright blue sky.  Not a breeze blowing.  And ... not a bit of effort on my part to get my butt out the door & do some work outside.  I've spent too much time today doing what I am doing right now; playing on the computer.

Oh, I did go outside for awhile, just to look around a bit.  We had some rain late yesterday, which is probably one of the reasons everything is looking clean, fresh & crisp right now. 

So as not to feel too guilty at my lazy, do-nothing attitude, I did take on one chore, just so I would know I did SOMETHING while I walked around outside: I sprayed the wasps which make an effort to nest in a hole in the support for my mail box. It's an on-going battle.

 The dead wasps -- for now ... as they always seem to come back.  It must be a prime, "in demand" location for wasps -- joined the ranks of some of the other "death" making itself known on my property.  Death always seems to be the color brown.  One example can be slightly seen in the far, upper right corner of the above photo.

For some reason, perhaps the hot, dry Summer which has just left us -- today is the first day of Fall --  the Japanese Black Pine at the end of my property decided a few weeks ago this would be a fine time to turn brown & die.  So it did.  The other pine tree -- same species, in the extreme left in the above photo -- seems to be doing just fine. ["Seems" is a key word.  Ya never know with trees.]

 Next time I have my chain saw out -- something I never look forward to -- the brown/dead pine tree will be cut up & hauled to the back lot to be burned.  Then, I will have to decide if I want to plant something else in place of the Japanese Black Pine. I don't have any ideas right now.

 The REAL problem tree is going to be the LARGE Willow tree which also decided to pass away this Summer over in my South yard.  This is a BIG tree, which had been slowly going down-hill for the past few years.  This year was "it" for the tree.

Because of the size of the tree (huge) & the size of my chain saw (small), along with my confidence in felling large trees (non-existent), I'll probably need to have an expert/professional come & get the tree on the ground.

Just so all the "death" appearing ion my land is spread out evenly & sorted by size & species, some of the larger bamboo decided not to be out-done.  In the above photo, there are several clums visible in the  center of the grove, which are in stages of either turning brown, or, have already shed their leaves.  All of them need to be cut down & burned.  All are dead.

Yes, today as been a beautiful day.  Just a perfect one for tackling some of the "projects" I am facing, as outlined above.  Too bad I felt really retired today & decided to observe the highlights of the day, rather than live them.  After all ... everything will still be dead -- & brown -- tomorrow.