The Widdermaker Looms

Saturday Farmer H offered to take me to the casino. That's because I had asked him to take me to the casino on Sunday. It wasn't simply a matter of him wanting to appear in control. I think he assumed I wouldn't want to go on Saturday.

It was already almost 10:00. We usually go to the casino early, before it's crowded, and are home by 1:00 or 2:00. Since it takes an hour to get there, Farmer H probably thought I would turn down such a short-lived chance to rid myself of some money. He was wrong. Also, the weather was deplorable. He might have though I wouldn't want to risk T-Hoe on ice. He was wrong.

On the way out of our gravel-roaded compound, we saw this:

That's a widow-maker! If a broken limb falls out of that mess and lands on a guy's head, it can kill him. It happened to a guy in a neighboring town a few years ago. I read about it in the paper. Technically, I think a widow-maker as I've heard about on TV is a tree you cut down, or one that falls over, that is caught up on another tree. I think these icy branches qualify.

I told Farmer H that I didn't want him driving wild on that back road on the way to the interstate. Still, though he didn't drive too FAST, he DID drive up under some low-hanging limbs. Of course they cracked and snapped off. We're lucky it was nothing big. Today on the way to town, ice chunks were falling all over the road, and some sticks and twigs, too, as the trees bent back into shape during the 33-degree temperatures.

The wrong limb would have been an orphan-maker for me and Farmer H. We have a lot of broken limbs. Farmer H says he's going to trim them after pushing them loose with the bucket of one of his tractors. But not today. Not until the ice is all melted.

Our cedars are sagging like weeping willows. Here's the tree Jack and Juno like to lay under:

I hope Old Coulda-Been-a-Tannenbaum doesn't make Puppy Jack his b*tch.