Palms Provide No Shade

Tonight, as I blow dried my daughters' hair, my mind started to wander to this blog. What should I write about tonight? The felled tree, the cardboard bakery or the tea party attended by naked Ariel? I hesitate to write about any of these topics because I don't have particularly compelling photos to go with them. Nevertheless, the photos were taken today so at least I can claim they're current.

First, the felled tree. I don't actually have any photos to illustrate this subject, but two days ago the condo association that borders our back yard cut down a large pine tree. I was the one who requested that they do so, but I didn't actually think that they would. The tree was tilting over our property at approximately a forty-five degree angle, dropping needles and making lots of shade.

I feel a little guilt about this tree, but not a lot. I will plant another, better-suited one to make up for it, but one can't help feel sadness when a tree is cut down. Before we bought this house, I felt that no tree should be cut down. I remember talking to a co-worker about the large tree in her yard. The roots were damaging her foundation and the tree was going to have to go. I naively thought this was a tragedy. That a mature tree should be saved at all cost.

Now I see that sometimes trees that weren't appropriately planted become dangerous or silly. (I'm going to seem like I'm tree-cutting happy, but we also had two palms trees removed from our front lawn a couple months ago. These are the silly trees that I'm referring to: two fifty foot palms sticking up in the middle of a lawn, not providing shade, not close enough to hang a hammock between and tall enough that all you could see of them was two brown trunks. This is silly tree planting if you ask me. I don't live in Hawaii or Los Angeles. I don't need palm trees next to the pine tree and azalea bushes also planted-by someone else-in my yard. Out of all the beautiful trees available, why plant palms that you know are going to grow three stories or higher?) I don't generally rant on here, but the palms get me going.

Back to newly felled tree in the back. Now that it's gone, a once very shady corner of my garden is very sunny. Everything I've planted there is no longer well-placed. While my shade plants are probably not too happy, the sun shining down on my yard is a happy thing.

Now I've spent a lot more time that I had planned going on my tirade about trees. So I will be briefer about the rest. The cardboard bakery we made today does not look anything like the example in the book I brought home from the library. It's an awesome book by designer Todd Oldham, entitled Kid Made Modern. This book is full of kids' crafts inspired by Mid-Century Modern artists and designers. (I pretend that I check out these kids' crafts books for my daughter but really they're for me.) My daughter also likes this book and she picked out a "modernist fort made from cardboard boxes" based on the mid-century case study houses that she wanted to make (and has been bugging me to make for four days now.)

She decided that she did not want a house, but a bakery. This is what I came up with: (I don't know what makes it a bakery though.)

 Here is the bakery-inspired tea party that naked Ariel attended:

The flowers that graced the "tables" of the bakery/cafe.

The cafe "chairs." Each one decorated by freshly picked flowers. (I have to fight the urge to prohibit any flower picking from my garden. I blame my flower-greediness on being an only child. Sharing, even with one's daughters, is not easy.)