Yesterday Russell and his friend were playing in the creek. After being gone a while, they came in the house, proudly displaying in their fists a bunch of about 20 flourescent pink and orange plastic ties.
"Look! We picked up trash from the creek!" they said.
My heart sunk. I had looked at those ties several times, many of them tied to giant sycamore and oak trees on the banks of "our" beloved creek, wondering what they meant. I hoped they meant those trees were marked by the MUD (Municipal Utility District) to save when they came to clear the creek beds, but at the same time I worried that if that were the case, why weren't more trees marked? Well, apparently there are no longer any trees marked along our stretch of creek, thanks to some well-meaning seven-year-olds. I quickly called the MUD manager and left a message about our blunder, and forgot about it.
But last night I had this horrible nightmare. I was on the phone, talking to a tree guy about how to save my sick potted lemon tree, when suddenly I realized the guys with Bobcats had come and were clearing trees. I ran down to the creek to find that every last tree was cut down and neatly chipped away into mulch, leaving nothing but red dirt, Bobcat tracks, and awful piles of dead mulch. I started sobbing, running madly down the creek, trying to find the ignorant tree killers who were just doing their job, knowing all along that all of this was my fault.
I woke up very distressed and couldn't sleep for a while I was so worried. All those beautiful trees. Gone.
Can you picture a sycamore tree? The ones in our neck of the woods are so tall I have to strain to see the top of their silvery white, smooth trunks. And the leaves are bigger than monster cookies.
I think I'm turning into a crazy old hippie lady—doing my part to keep Austin weird.
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