shorn

It's annual brush-clearance day for us - which means that an army of workers descends and trims all the overhanging foliage, and clears away all the dead grass and brush at the back of the house, and thins the big trees - not visible here - and generally makes the place Safe and Presentable prior to its annual fire safety inspection.  This year, they also took down the mesquite tree that was growing - growing incredibly quickly - in this corner, so that the roots were undermining the wall, and goodness knows what besides.  It was a pretty, feathery tree - maybe we should plant a successor in some far corner of the property? - they subsist on very little water, and one of the problems with this one is probably that it swallowed too much water, so grew tall and spindly.  It's a fascinating tree, with many indigenous uses (including making sewing needles from its leaves, and dyes, and gums, and medicine); and its wood is extraordinarily dense and hard (the roads leading up to the Alamo, in San Antonio, were originally paved with it) - I feel bad to see it go, but it was truly in the wrong place.