
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter recently snapped this photo of the bright dusty lava plain to the northeast of Arsia Mons, one of the four giant Tharsis volcanoes of Mars. The most famous Tharsis volcano is Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the entire solar system, with an area the size of Texas and a height of three Mt. Everests. This hole does not appear to be a crater as it has no crater rim and no ejecta (stuff that got kicked out from an erupting volcano or smashing meteorite). It is just a hole in the planet with a diameter roughly the size of a football field. The only other thing scientists can say for sure about this hole is that it must be extremely deep for them not to be able to see the bottom. Several hundred feet or several hundred miles, no one can presently say. At last we know where they are hiding the invasion fleet.
Speaking of bottomless pits, I have finally started the remodel of my house which is also the reason for the abysmal and inexcusable lack of posting for the past month. We moved ourselves and every valuable item we own clear across town and into my mother's manse over several weeks that were rather all-consuming. In addition to exhaustion, our internet connectivity was spotty at best for this period. This is not an excuse, but an explanation. I hope you accept my sincere apologies.
Like any good fairy tale/home improvement project I should probably begin at the beginning: Once Upon a Time there was a family that wanted a house, so they gathered up their wedding money and a gift from the Mighty and Powerful Barrister and bought a lovely cottage in a valley glen. Many years passed blissfully where the young couple became more prosperous and started to want fleeting luxuries, like Jacuzzi tubs and stone countertops. They searched high and low for a new abode, but all the wondrous places of the land still seemed far beyond their humble grasp, especially when one took Prop 13 and its effect on stabilizing property taxes into account. So they decided to turn their sweet, little cottage into a castle.
Then they had twin baby girls and everything went kinda squirrely. The dream project was delayed. And what happens to a dream house deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore -- And then run?... Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?*

Turns out none of the above. A dream house deferred makes one do foolish things, like attempt to move a lemon tree without any professional arboreal expertise. The planned corner of the new house was going to take out this top notch citrus producer, so I, hole digger extraordinaire, decided it would be a snap to move it.
I may have been a bit hasty.

Here is the hole I dug to which I would eventually transplant the lemon tree. It was quite easy to dig and at this stage in the process I was quite pleased with myself.

This close-up gives a good idea of the massive trench we dug around this lemon tree. It took me and Candice three weekends to dig it down 28 inches. The diameter is roughly three feet. These numbers were not pulled from the Ether, but actually came from a calculation I found online regarding root ball size vs. diameter of the tree trunk. You may notice that the trunk actually splits into two mere inches off the ground. In my cleverness I deduced that the root ball size was probably directly related to the volume of water the tree like to pull up its trunk. Since there were no branches before the Y-split (to take water), I could just take the numbers for each trunk diameter and add them together to find the total volume of root ball needed.

Whether or not this calculation worked I will never know, as the bottom line is that the subsequent root ball was so absurdly heavy I had approximately 0.00001% chance of moving it. This number is greater than zero to account for the possibility than in a rage I might transform into a jade-skinned, musclebound Hulk because of gamma rays I absorbed during a college lab trip to a Nuclear accelerator.
So after all that time digging and scooping and measuring and planning, I finally managed to push the tree over with something like 4-5 inches of root ball attached. Oops.

With my handy sidekick and female progenitor (i.e., mom) to help we pruned the poor tree back to a shrub, because we knew if it were to have any chance to survive we had to cut its foliage back to match its now drastically reduced root system. Soon after this photo we literally rolled the tree across my yard and into the prepared hole. Then I made the prepared hole actually big enough to fit the tree in. So much for preparation.

Finally the tree was moved and replanted. Here I am enjoying the spoils of another excellent hole digging adventure. As of this photo I gave the mutilated lemon tree about a 5% chance at survival. At least the lemon flower is sweet. Unfortunately the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat. Because I killed the tree before it could make any more**. More updates on the tree (will it live or die? Your phone call will decide) in a later blog entry.
This whole fiasco actually went down almost two months ago, but it is really the first stage of this redo everything project. I promise future entries, appearing much more often than once a month, will record it all in excruciating detail.
My market research shows me that 45% of my audience are here for the Holes and related Hole-issues, while another 45% are here for baby stuff***. Babies will continue to appear here amidst the remodel craziness, never-you-fear. To tide you over, here is Kayla lost in a fantastical land of pillows. I believe she eventually escaped by singing a song to the lollipop king, who carried her away to his hide-away in the mysterious caverns of Mars...

* Could someone please dig up Langston Hughes and stop him from his incessant spinning? Thank you.
** To the best of my knowledge Peter, Paul & Mary are all still alive. Hopefully this travesty will not alter that. Stay strong Travers.
*** The remaining 10% are serial killers. Their high viewership has been previously noted in these pages. Why this is I have prudently decided not to ask.
IMPORTANT ADDENDUM: Candice heavily participated in the hole digging, a fact I originally neglected in the blog. For this I thoroughly apologize and offer to dig her next hole without taking any credit.
Stop giggling. It wasn't meant to be dirty...
Ok maybe a little bit.
4 comments:
Some of us are here for the monkeys, which, sadly, have gone by the wayside. Speaking of which, how come you haven't kicked any elves yet?
Loved the Langston Hughes allusion. We just finished 'studying' the Harlem Renaisance. Can you work some Cab Calloway into the next post?
And yes Peter Yarrow is still alive and his manager has a kid in my mom's class and my mom got to meet him and he did a concert at their school.
Glad to hear the remodel is underway. Much luck with that.
Will you be in attendance at the 1/2 birthday shindig?
Brian of course has not mentioned anything to me. I would take this as a slight if I did not know his brain is like a hyper-active puppy, running around all over the place and making messes.
Sadly, I believe I have plans for that weekend to go to Vegas (in-laws + some of Candy's friends). I would like to get down to San Diego in the near future though. Candice wants to take the girls to the San Diego zoo, by which I think she means she wants to go to the San Diego zoo.
I will try and add more monkey content. I can not promise I will Kick an Elf, but I will put it on the Wish List.
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