When we bought this house we inherited a pair of bedraggled old maple trees. That was nearly 8 years ago. They have been a royal you know what since we moved in. Somewhere along the line they had been topped improperly and the tree never heals after that, so there were a lot of dead limbs. In the last several years, every time a breeze blew, dozens of branches of assorted sizes would plummet to the yard. Luckily, no one was hurt and the falling branches were small enough not to cause any more damage than a tuft of grass being dislodge. The other annoyance was the constant dropping of leaves. Into the gutter along the back side of the house. This has caused some roof damage since my husband is not fond of high places and refuses to endanger life and limb to clean out gutters more than once a year. Frankly, as I am afraid of heights, this causes no complaint from me.

Somewhere back in October I got bitten by the home improvement bug. I blame the Dish TV my husband had installed. So when I saw a flyer advertising tree removal at “off-season” rates I called and got an estimate. The price was too good not to follow through on, and today a horde of burly men climbed up and down those trees and chainsawed ’em down. Bye-bye poor, sickly maples.

Hello two large heaps of sweet smelling wood chips.

In order to remove these trees, the services to the house had to be disconnected so the wires running between the trees to the house wouldn’t be in the way. So I was without electric, cable and phone service all day. At about 5 PM the electric company finally showed up to reconnect the lines to the power grid. I though oh good, I’ll get to watch the evening news. Only somewhere along the way from last night to tonight the TV stopped working. I was on the phone with the tech guy, who’s final word on the matter was — well, it appears you need a new TV.

Luckily, the elder daughter has a spare set just collecting dust which she was more than happy to give us.

Maybe it’s a good thing I can’t get my daily fix of HGTV. Who knows what other project will catch my interest?

On the up side of all this, I had no excuse or distraction from working on my January children’s coloring page. This month’s page is “E” of lessor know Goddesses. “Enodia — Guardian of gates and crossroads.” I started this one back around Christmas, but all my previous drawings are now lining the trash can, as I am ever the perfectionist and they just didn’t “do” it for me. Today’s rendition is finally one I am happy with and will be available for free download for members of my mailing list. To join go to Magical Child News a yahoo announcement only list. I plan to have the download ready by the end of the week.

Visit Magical Child Books to see inside my children’s picture books, see the book trailer for Aidan’s First Full Moon Circle or read articles about Pagan life. And of course, make purchases of both An Ordinary Girl, A Magical Child or Aidan’s First Full Moon Circle.

Blessings,
Lyon