Vacation? No - A Whirling Dervish of Cleaning

The tree is down! I haven't had a chance to go to the back yard and take a look yet. I'll try for before and after photos in tomorrow's blog, but right now I can say that it is gone and one more thing is complete for this year's backyard project. We also appear to have many colorful flags in the yard - I suspect marking gas and water lines for the landscapers. It's progressing, and DH will have lots of chain sawing to do after Sharon returns home next week. 

This is what the tree looked like. The yellow
sheath actually hides a second cable that goes directly
through the tree. The silver cable above it is next
to the trunk. The chain link fence with the power lines
directly above it is on the far right. Just far enough
away to allow for legal removal or the tree, but borderline. 

The tree people turned up around 11:00 am and it was completed by 12:30 pm, so quite quickly and efficiently. Since this particular tree has been bothering me since forever (maybe a little understated, but not much), I'm absolutely delighted to have it down and away from the power lines. Now we can bury the cables as needed when the landscapers change the levels of the grade in less than three weeks, and then we can get our new backyard shed erected. 

I love this light photograph by Andre Roberts entitled "Whirling
Dervish". An Egyptian photographer, he took this in 2008.
From what I understand, the dancer had lights on his
costume that illuminated when he began to dance. 

Today, my "day off", will be spent cleaning like a whirling dervish. Sharon arrives tomorrow and her room is NOT ready. It will be tomorrow, though. Aearwen has a schedule conflict, so won't be able to have our weekly chat, which gives me another hour of cleaning time. I need it! 

Here is a spectacular photo of a Whirling Dervish ceremony in
Istanbul, Turkey. I don't know a lot about this branch of Islam, but
the dancers are mesmerizing.

Today is also the beginning of my second "vacation" of the year. This time I'm off until next Tuesday. I'm (obviously) not going anywhere, but I'll be spending time with my friend from high school, and that's always a wonderful time. We'll be walking our feet off and spending time people watching, we'll eat WAY too many calories, and we'll catch up on our lives over the past year. As vacations go, it's totally stellar. 

I love fractal images. Here is a Whirling Dervish fractal image to
share with all of you. Beautiful and totally mesmerizing. 

So I'll post tomorrow, and then I'll be in silent mode until next week Wednesday. Enjoy your Wednesday. I'll be back tomorrow with photos of the invisible tree as well as this and that! OH - and I'll try to tell you the story of "Franken-Smaug". I was very brave yesterday and tore my laptop computer apart (twice) to replace a broken hinge. Scary! Unbelievably (well, I did do a lot of research first), it turned out well and Smaug seems to be working well once again. He now has bolts and nuts pushing through his casing, though - thus the "Fraken-Smaug" appellation. Full tale tomorrow!