I slept so poorly last night. I think thoughts of this morning's early arrival of the power company crew was on my mind.  Would they cut down the tree or leave it to me? Would I be out of power long or not? Would I be able to clean up the mess before taking dad out to lunch today?

I didn't think I slept AT ALL, but my Fitbit said I slept for 5 hours. It doesn't take much to mess up my sleep, believe me.

A crew of 4 arrived (maybe a little overkill, but I assume they had other things to do), assessed the situation and instead of dropping the line and then returning later, they offered to just cut the offending tree limb touching the power lines themselves, wearing special rubber gloves for protection. It was done in minutes, and then they even dragged the tree limbs into the woods for me, saving me a few hours of work.

They did leave the second limb for me to handle myself, since it isn't touching the lines, but that's okay; I understand they are not a tree service business and only wanted to clear what was touching the power lines. I won't leave the tree standing for long because it will likely keep growing up and cause a problem again soon if I don't. 

In my state, the electric company is very unpopular due to high electric bills, but as I learned today, they also provide an important service, and they couldn't have been nicer or easier to deal with.

As it turns out, dad has a plumbing issue and needs to wait for the plumber's arrival, so we won't be doing lunch today anyway. Maybe tomorrow.

Maybe I'll take a nap later this afternoon....

I have a Japanese maple that I noticed earlier this year was possibly touching the power line going to my house. It's not huge, maybe 20  to 25 feet high? It's growing directly underneath it. I spoke to the utility company and they said don't try to take it down with live power lines above, we can schedule a date with you where a crew will come and "drop the line" so I (or my tree guy) can cut the tree down.

It's just starting to leaf out now... Now if the tree were growing within 10 feet or so of the road, they would take the tree down for me, but this tree is not fronting the road. 

We scheduled it for mid-May, but the utility guy mentioned he was planning on coming here today to take a look at it, so I met him to discuss the tree.  Normally you tell them when you want them to come back after they drop the line, and I told him I was sure all I needed was an hour (or less). I was a little worried they would not return right away and meanwhile I'd have no power.

He called me later today and said they could come tomorrow instead of mid-May, so I said ok. I had told my tree guy about the original date to see if he could take it down but he didn't really commit to it (small job), but I figured if he didn't show up, I think I could handle it myself with my mini chain saw. Still, if the utility company offered, I would gladly have them do it. Either way, I'll still have some work ahead of me to cut it up and drag the limbs into the woods.

In my state, the utility company is very unpopular due to their slow response to restore power during a number of heavy-hitting storms that caused widespread extended outages. So it is nice to have them be so accommodating.

I have plans to take my father out to lunch tomorrow but hopefully I can drag limbs out of the way so I can drive away if I don't finish everything up by mid-day.

I devoted most of the day to pulling garlic mustard. It is bagged and ready to be taken to the invasive plant bin at the transfer station.

Our selectmen voted this week to pass a rodenticide ban which the conservation commission put forward. Rodenticides are used in bait boxes around buildings to kill rodents. (I noticed a box at my local Whole Foods, and they have also been used around the many long-vacant buildings of a former state mental health hospital that is slowly being repurposed.)

The problem is that the poison doesn't kill them immediately, but takes days, and what happens is they crawl aroun and then raptors, owls, foxes, even house cats will kill and eat them, and then they die. Rodenticides are now the leading cause of death for raptors. We are the first town in my state to pass such a ban and we are now intent on spreading the word so that other towns will do the same.

A friend and I had lunch last week at a great Italian place in town. They have a price fixe menu featuring a 3-course lunch for $22. Large portions, too.

Whelp, my dog-sitting stint is over, and Violet's dad stopped by yesterday to pick her up. He told me his wife said to pay me more, so I got what I consider a very generous "tip" for my trouble.

The house felt kind of empty when she left, but truth be told, I'm glad to be able to get back to my usual routine as I'd put a lot of chores/errands to the side so as not to leave the dog alone any more than necessary. Even when I stayed home, I modified my behavior because she followed me from room to room and I am usually up and down my stairs a hundred times a day. She's an elder dog and has trouble going down the stairs, so to spare her joints and since she didn't always listen to my "Stay" command, I tried to minimize the number of times I went up or down the stairs.

But she was a good girl and behaved very well except for waking me up a little too early, around 5 am. I'd get up to bring her out to pee only to discover what she really wanted was to eat, which isn't supposed to happen til 7 am.

I was named Volunteer of the Month (for June) with one of my volunteer groups. I was interviewed by an intern and look forward to seeing the writeup soon.

Recently the warmer weather had me doing stuff in the brushy "danger zone" of my property. You know, where the ticks hang out. Once everything has fully leafed out, I don't often venture in there til fall.

Not only did I find 2 ticks on a pant leg (one teeny, which I would never have seen if I weren't wearing white pants) but more recently, I found a tick ATTACHED to me. I had to start 10 days of antibiotics.  It was on a part of my body that I can't see well. (Use your imagination.) Luckily, I was able to see the doc the very next day. So far, so good. No symptoms.

During dog-sitting, I did decide to move forward with a litter cleanup event here in town that I planned and promoted on our town FB page. I had 6 volunteers including a local woman running for State Representative and a family of 3 plus 2 others from a volunteeer group I serve with. The town DPW dropped off a bin for us to heave the trash bags into. I think we got a lot.

I'm meeting a friend today for lunch in a while at a newer Italian place but I think I'll drop off trash at the transfer station first. I'm starving.

I have a ton of garden chores to do but am waiting until this too-warm weather in the 80s disappears tomorrow. Planting liatrus bulbs (beloved by butterflies), planting lettuce seed (we'll have at least one night in the 20s next week so that comes a little later). Digging up an invasive cluster of non-native asters before they get truly entrenched. I did manage to dump 8 heavy bags of top soil and potting soil into my raised beds. Everything just happens at once outside and usually feels lilke it's too much. Oh yeah, digging up the invasive celandine growing along the roadside; it was most likely spread by the town mowers that periodically mow roadsides to maintain visibility.  I've dug it up (very laborious) the last 2 years, but instead of roots, it has these tiny "bulbettes" which will regrow if you don't get them all.

I'm planning to tone down this year's veggie garden so it's more easily managed and doesn't get so out of control because I overplanted. This year, I'm planning on lettuce, snow peas, 1 zucchini, 2 cucumber plants, just 2 cherry tomato plants and MAYBE 1 or 2 dellicata squash plants along the fence.

I hope everyone is enjoying their Easter.

My friend dropped off his dog, on Saturday, and so I've adjusted my schedule to revolve around her pee breaks outdoors and her one big walk I take her on around mid-day. I'm afraid she  might be a bit bored with not much else going on today.

Made plans to meet for another lunch with a friend in town this week. We both want to try a new-to-us Italian restaurant that's supposed to be quite good and has a price fixe menu for lunch. Our first lunch was Indian and also very good.

This friend has a female pit bull (or maybe it's a mix) and we took it for a hike we did a week or so ago. The dog is fine, and seems very sweet. My friend, upon learning I was dog-sitting, suggested we walk our dogs together  I explained that most especially since this is not my dog, I'd rather not do that as the dog's dad mentioned that while his dog "never met a human she didn't love," that sometimes she doesn't like other dogs. It just depends. So when I walk her I avoid close encounters with other dogs, even on a leash with their owners. I would just like to avoid any problems. Everyone says their dog is "friendly," but you really can't predict how they might react to another animal. I've also observed that most dog owners do not have real control over their animals. They think they do but then when they call the dog's name, it just ignores them. 

So those two things make me cautious. My friend seemed to understand when I explained all my reasoning, but then she seemed to forget and brought it up again later, so I sort of reminded her that I've decided I'd rather not walk the dogs together.

So today while texting, she brought it up again!! She said she "thinks it will be okay." I feel like she's not respecting my choices.

When we hiked with her dog at a local state park when the place was deserted, we had an unpleasant encounter with another dog. A man had his husky off-leash (against the rules) and his dog bounded up to sniff around my friend's dog. While my friend's dog WAS fine and well-behaved, this husky was coming across as very aggressive and dominant, and it started making sounds that to me didn't sound like a growl, but maybe was a precursor to a growl, if that makes any sense. I know huskies are very verbal, so maybe it was a husky thing. It was alarming, and what's more, this dog was so hyper-focused on my friend's dog that it bumped into me more than once (and my friend) with enough force that it could have knocked me over. It was like it was over-stimulated or something.

While all this was happening my friend was getting more upset, yelling at the owner to get his dog. The owner seemed very slow in doing so, said the dog was "friendly" and so on, but evidently he's had problems with it before because he had a device in his hand that would apparently send small shocks to the husky on its collar. Except that it wasn't having the desired effect so he finally had to grab the dog by the collar.

Spring has sprung around here, not in full force, but in addition to the daffodils in bloom and tulips well on their way, some trees, like wilow, are becoming green, red or yellow. Such a wonderful time of the year.

I've made reservations for a little getaway for myself soon to a southern Vermont town that  used to be part of my "beat" as a 24-year-old news reporter. I hadn't been back to this area at any time in the last over 40 years and I always thought this one particular town (not the one I lived in) was kind of cool and interesting, so I've done some research to find things to do to occupy my time there and have come up with quite a bit.

I plan on taking the long, meandering route up that way because it's a pretty drive, and I can stop at one particular musuem in Massachusetts where my friend whose dog I'm pet-sitting is having an exhibit of his late father's artwork. Like 30 or 35 equestrian paintings, so it's quite a big show. The timing is right and it could be the only such show I ever have an opportunity to see, plus my friend only dropped off the art and doesn't know what the exhibit will look like, so I figured I'd snap a few photos to send him. It breaks up my drive, too.

Once I get there, I'll be browing antique shops and galleries, seeing if I can find some ancient petryglyphs, checking out the very touristy Vermont Country Store, walking a riverfront trail on the CT River and maybe taking a short drive north to see what's changed in the town I did live in. On the way home, depending on whether or not I take the interstate, I can stop midway to visit a botanical garden, view a giant sycamore tree and maybe the Bridge of Flowers.

So the most direct drive with no stops would be just 2.5 hrs but about 4 hrs with my little stops. The B&B gets great reviews most especially for its full breakfast, so I'm looking forward to that but will be on my own for lunch and dinner.

I'm looking forward to the trip; I just hope it doesn't rain, cus that could really put a damper on things.