Tuesday, December 29, 2009

If A Tree Falls in the Forest

and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Well of course not, I would answer, qualifying the answer by including birds and other hearing critters among the absentees. The falling tree would create the vibrations that we and such critters would interpret as sound if we were there, I would add, while putting aside such matters as the transmission of these vibrations across great (or small) distances to other sentient beings who might or might not be hearing the sound
Soooooooooo if a tree falls in the backyard of a sentient being and said sentient being ignores it, what happens? It returns to the dirt that birthed it, I would say and I offer the photo at the left as proof. I would remiss if I failed to point out the caribiner and chain attached to the tree trunk about two thirds of the way up. This was not an unloved tree, though we did not hear it falling. It held up one end of one of our two (much loved hammocks).


All this is prelude to The Presentation of The Moss. I like my back yard look of winter. Instead of the white coldness of snow, I get the sometimes moist greenness of moss. It reminds me of a summer visit to Amsterdam

in my 20's; the moss remains my second most vivid memory of the
city. And so, more pictures of moss, all of them clickable because they are so cool. The last one shows the remaining

hammock which will soon be stored in deference to winter's fierceness, Northern California style.




On a totally other subject, Thursday will begin my 5th week of on-track eating. I have been writing about this in my newest blog, Onwards: 11/11/09 to 11/11/11. I had not planned to provide a link to this blog until I'd reached 185 pounds, the weight at which I started Onwards, Getting Rid of the Regain on September 29, 2005. My current weight is considerably higher, but I feel confident that the only thing that now stands between me and my size tens is time. I invite you to join me as I narrow the distance from here to there.

4 comments:

Lorraine said...

Well I love trees so mcuh, when they fall my heart cries, I hear it. I love your moss, in fact the colder it gets the earlier my yearnings for spring, I love your blog, there's no snow lol plus you write like a genius, and I found a way to try to loose weight..Right now I'm wearing size 12 (canadian) cords, they're very tight of course, but I decided since I hate the scale, I'm just going to wear them everyday for a few hours in the morning, until they fit! That's my dieting plan, I am not aiming for more...riht now size 16 is loose on me, so I could wear size 14, which is alright, but size 12 is a better motivator, anyhoo all my pants (except the stretchies) are size 8 and 9...so I don't even want to go that far, 'cause there's no way I can eat so little, not anyore, not now that I'm retired...I could go on, but I'll stop now lol ;)

Kathy said...

It must be so difficult to lose a hammock tree! They are rare and handy when they are in just the right place. Did you plant them for that purpose or did they just happen to be there? Your pictures of moss are so pretty. It is the privilege of artistic people to point out the beauty that exists but that the rest of us don't see unless you point it out to us. I would pass moss every day and probably never stop and take note of it.
I give you all the best wishes in the world regarding the healthy eating and weight loss. My success is so spotty that I get discouraged and just accept who I am for months before some crisis arises and I get back in the groove again. Maybe your success will inspire me!

ArleneWKW said...

Lorraine: I love your compliments. They do much to motivate me to continue writing. I've responded to your comments about losing weight in my weight related blog.

Kathy: The people from whom we bought our house, the original owners and designers of the house, had put the hooks for the hammocks in the trunks of the trees. I think they were virtually integrated with the substance of the tree. The hammocks were comfortably next to each other and the loss of one of them is sad for us. I'm glad that my observations may get you to notice things that you might not otherwise, though, based on your own posts, I think that you are a very observant lady and well appreciate your surroundings. As with Lorraine, I've responded to your comments about losing weight in my weight related blog..

Lorraine said...

oh I thought this one was about the weight...I'm a bit dumb today