Whingetator

Urg – I figured I’d better get used to the new WordPress editor. Since, you know, the old one worked well 99% of the time and throwing that one out for an unknown quantity makes so much sense.

No more photos tonight. As I expected, the husband half of the trip backed out at the last minute. We’re old farts and after he does his weekend yard-sale marathon he’s done for at least a day or two. Tomorrow, with or without him, I’m going on an expedition to snap some pictures.

The weather took a gorgeous turn this afternoon late. My phone screeched out a warning. Husband and I both shrugged and said, “Dust storm,” about the same time the winds started to pick up.

Let’s give credit where credit is due. NOAA is getting more accurate all the time. They now wait until it’s actually raining to forecast rain. Voilá! Guaranteed accuracy! And in this case, thank goodness, rain did indeed follow the dust storm. This summer Mother Nature was dumping dust storms right and left, but bypassing the rain which normally follows. We had a nice downpour for a while today, and it’s still rumbling outside a bit. I’m hoping the rain isn’t over for the night. Our usual rainfall is a deluge, but it lasts an average of 4-9 minutes or so.

The picture above is the branch of a moringa oleifera tree, also known as a drumstick tree, in bloom. This is a close up of the type of itty bitty baby trees my husband decided to plant around our mobile a few weeks ago.

There are a lot of cool things about this tree. For one thing, virtually every bit of it is both edible and highly nutritious. It’s drought-tolerant (necessary for life in our part of the world), heat-tolerant, and grows fast. It’s that last part which provides the kicker to the story.

See, my husband planted these things in a line around the back of our property, and spaced them roughly four feet apart. I told him he needed to give them more space, but in his typical attitudinal copperage (oh hush), he decided he knew better than what the nursery information online had to say, or anyone else. So these itty bitty trees, which were pretty green sprouts below knee height when we planted them in July, are easily chest high now and already a couple of feet across. And they haven’t yet hit their growth spurt. By two years old, they’re going to hit 15-20 feet or more. I know because I saw a two year old tree at the place where we bought these babies. It was ginormous, and had just been pruned to within an inch of its life because it had gotten so big.

They’re not cypress trees. They don’t grow up rail-thin. These are a tropical tree which, if unchecked, mean we’re not just going to have a neat hedge around the back of the house. We’re gonna be living in a forest. And it won’t take long to get there.

The husband’s thought on the issue is we won’t be here by then, so it doesn’t matter. Nice theory, but really, dude. C’mon.

Wherever we move, if we move, I’d like to take some of these babies with us. Just not, you know, an entire forest, not unless we’re moving to an acreage. Don’t get me wrong – trees in our part of the world are welcome. I’d love to have that many trees in a normal-sized yard. But we don’t have a normal-sized yard. I just have a husband with tree-hoarding tendencies.

Finally, as I was grousing on Facebook. I’ve reached the conclusion that AirBnB is a pain in the ass for no worthwhile return. Yeah, all those neat little micro-houses look super cool. However, by the time you pay seasonal rates and all the tacked-on fees, you’re not getting a bargain, and it’s too tiny to have any experience more profound than skinned knees. Come over to the dark side… We have cookies… And continental breakfast…