Fourth of July

 * Mowed the front and back yards (there's less grass in  the backyard right now, because of all the tearing up from the tree removal) and used the weed-whacker. I kind of hurt this evening but it needed to be done

I heard my first firework of the day at 9:32 am, as I was resting from mowing the back and getting ready to clean up the edges of the sidewalks.

* I hear a lot more now as it's getting dark. I admit, the "amateur" fireworks - which are WIDELY sold here are are completely legal, even within city limits - don't thrill me. I grew up in a state where they were pretty illegal, and I remember my dad telling the sellers they for out of state (A LIE! A BLATANT LIE! and that bothered me as a kid). They were just very wimpy fireworks; mostly bottle rockets and those things that you nail onto a stump and they spin around (sometimes called Catherine wheels, I think)

But still - I always worried about fire, or us getting in trouble with the police (though I suspect the police looked the other way on that, at least on July 4), or injuries. And yeah, injuries from fireworks are a VERY big concern and I've seen photographs and yeah.

I like the big, professionally-done shows, where you get the real artistry along with the noise but most of the amateur fireworks are mostly noise and not a lot of color. 

* We might get storms tonight, and they're warning about high winds and HOW GRATEFUL AM I THAT THE ELM TREE IS DOWN. If we get high winds now I don't have to worry about it coming down. 

I mean, yes, on some level I miss it. The backyard looks different, and when I drive up to the house it's not there - it was always there, rising up behind the garage, and now it isn't. 

And I admit, I remembered with a pang how shortly before my family moved from the house I grew up in, someone had bought the empty lot behind us, where my brother used to run around a lot in and play in, and there were a couple of aspen trees that I used to climb as a kid (I can't IMAGINE now, being that light and that agile) and they cut them down. And I watched, even though it made me sad, because I felt the need to bear witness to it somehow. And I guess on some level I felt the same about THIS tree, because I did spend most of Tuesday and part of Wednesday morning when they were working on it sitting in my sewing room watching them work. 

* I do have vague plans for the space. I would like, later this summer or early this fall, when it's a bit cooler, to hire a landscaper to put down landscape cloth (to try to defeat some of the weeds) and then lots of earth on top of it, and build a little retaining wall almost to the height of the top of the stump (so like a foot or foot and a half) and then I plant it with perennial plants, maybe some small flowering shrubs. 

First I do need to try to get more of the brush out of that backyard; it gets bad every year and most years (if it's not too hot) I do get it cut out, but I never have the motivation then to plant much. (What I REALLY need to do is get landscape cloth put down and either rocks, or soil, and then plant that area. Or hire someone to come in a couple times a year and cut all the weedy stuff out)

* I've worked more on the ongoing socks; I'm close to the toe decrease. I'll have to decide what's the best way to do that for 56-stitch socks; I usually do 64. I'm not sure if I look up the old Socka toe I used years and years ago (it's a wedge toe), or try the "star toe" and just wind up with fewer sections to the "star" (you start with a multiple of 8, then of 7, and so on. Not sure if 56 works with that)

* I've been watching a lot of cartoons today. I realized I've changed to watching a lot of news lately and I don't think that's good for my mood; I get into a "you have to MONITOR everything!" mindset where I worry about all that's going on in the world, and really none of it is anything I can change? So it's better to watch stuff that makes me laugh (like Bob's Burgers) or that shows characters being better and nicer than the humans who get onto the news are (My Little Pony, Bluey) and I think I need to do that more. 

* Very loud out there right now. I hope either the rain comes in soon, or else people use up/get bored with all their fireworks soon. I may just go to bed and read until it gets quiet. I don't know whether I'm going in tomorrow or not; if it's cool enough I might just cut brush instead