I did a stupid thing. Remember that challenging bird feeder? The one that I thought I wouldn't attempt to fill for a while? Well I decided that my coordination was good enough this morning that I would try to fill it. Coming back up the slope, I tripped and my left knee caught. I felt an immediate twinge. I've been icing and elevating. I need to pick up Dad at the airport this afternoon, and I need to meet him at the gate. I felt confident that I could make it through security and onto the electric cart, but now I'm a bit worried.
Meanwhile, Hubby is in town, and I am waiting for the tree surgeons. I don't trust self-employed workers. It doesn't matter if they're installing air conditioning, or sweeping the chimney. They say they'll be there within a certain time frame on a particular day, and they almost never are. This explains, in part, why they work for themselves. No one else will employ a person who is unreliable. My kitchen took six months. And the guy never did complete it.. we hired a carpenter to come in and finish the job. He almost finished it. Our handyman finally got the job done two years later. We were to have our new air conditioner installed three weeks ago. Three dates have passed, and still no show. For now it's okay because the days are in the mid 80s, but two weeks ago (and one week AFTER the first work date promised) it was near to or over 100 degrees every day. I keep trying to get Hubby to find someone else, but he says they are giving him the best price. (arrrggg!) If you've met him you'll know that convenience and a reasonable work ethic have nothing to do with the decision to hire. It's all about price. So we wait.
But then there is the man who put in our pond. We hired him after interviewing five people, and he came in near to the lowest bid, but he is also a member of the Mennonite community about an hour from here. I trusted him at his word and the pond is mine. He said he would be arriving on a Monday morning at 7:00 am, would work until 5:00 pm, and would be finished by Friday evening. Whenever I happened to be at home while he was working, I would catch him standing back like an artist, eyeing the placement of rocks and and plant shelves, then editing his work before he cleaned up for the day. Never a twig or rock or pile of dirt on the lawn when he left for the day. On Friday evening, after living up to his promised schedule, I arrived home from work to find him, his wife, and his two children in their bare feet, raking the mulch around the pond gardens. Their baby was asleep on my living room couch, with a pillow barracade around him. It took be by surprise, but I quickly realized that the world is so complicated and large that we have forgotten our sense of community and we scrutinize the things we should take for granted. His wife and I sat on the porch while the boys finished up. We chatted about our kids, our families, and her two sisters who were about to leave the country on a church mission. Before they left my pond guy motioned me over to his truck where he had me pick out my pond plants, and then handed me a bag with a dozen tiny, brightly colored fish. In return we then handed him his payment and enough home made chocolate cake to feed his brood for a week. Later we received a thank you note from him and his wife. One weekend about a month later we drove out to his home to pick up a bush he had promised to find for us. His wife fed us fried fruit pies that she was making for the farmer's market. He built my bench from an oak tree he had removed from his own property, and we drove past his father's farm, the source of our pond rocks. A few weeks later still, he arrived at our home with a camera and asked if he could take pictures of the pond. It's oddly comforting to know the origin of some of the best elements of my pond, and it's wonderful to know that it was built with care, and the intention of completing a job well done.
Today we are waiting for the tree surgeons who are going to take down some limbs that hang over the pond, and take out a tree that blocks the sun. The tree is not really a tree, but is a pussy willow bush that was never trimmed by the original owners of our house. It has grown up above the porch roof. Each spring the pussy willows arrive way up above the roof where we do not see them and cannot cut them. They drop litter all over the yard in the form of sodden, rotting pussy willow buds, and then about half of the leaves begin to curl and wither and fall. We won't have them drill the stump, and that way perhaps shoots will start a small bush that we can manage better. There is also a huge, and I mean enormous tree trunk near our drive. The diameter is about 5 feet, and it stands 15 feet tall. This trunk is what is left of an ash tree we took out 10 years ago. The tree was dying, rotting and had huge knot holes in it. We were worried it would fall on the house. I had noticed that the woodpeckers loved it, and I wasn't sure what might be living inside of it, so we had the tree guys cut it just below the electric wires, and let it go on its own. It has housed nuthatches, squirrels, and possibly raccoons for the last ten years, but now it has served its purpose and is crumbling. Huge chunks of bark are shedding from the tree, and the holes are no longer holes, but gaping rotten spots in the wood. So we are having it removed as well. The tree surgeons were supposed to have been here about two hours ago. It seems a small thing, but it's supposed to thunderstorm this afternoon (yes.. and remember I'm supposed to pick up Dad at the airport).
Later.. We pick up my Dad at the airport, or I do. I have to get a security pass to get to the gate to meet him. That is not a problem, but what is a problem is that apparently unless I am a flying customer I cannot access the wheelchairs or electric cart for myself. I have to walk 28 gates on crutches to get to Dad. I also have to stand in the security line on crutches. And I can't walk through the metal detector thingie with my crutch and they will not wheel me through. I am in agony trying to stand on my bad leg/knee, and I set off the detector thingie by falling against it. I'm so embarassed I start to cry and then I get yelled at by the TSA. I HATE PHILADELPHIANS. Well, generally I like lots of them, but I really despise the rude and uncaring attitude of a lot of the "service" people here. We are always so amazed when we travel to other cities and find nearly everyone to be sweet and caring, helpful and pleasant. No attitude.
By the time I get home my leg is swollen and painful, and the tree guys who showed up just before we left for the airport have completed their work. We return to find that they have let part of the pussy willow fall into the pond. Every single plant was crushed, along with my orchid which had been blooming since April. It will be weeks before the pond has grown back in - and it will not have time this year to return to the its former beauty of just three hours ago. I am so sad. Not a good day.. but at least Dad is here safe and sound.
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