Boulder disposal

It was gray and grim weather, and I had a small mountain of writing to do, so I didn't have much time for a walk. But I was curious about the nature of the steady rumbling I had been hearing through the walls of the house—something like a series of small avalanches—and it didn't take long for me to find out what had been going on. Most of those "god-awful" trees have been cut down across the street, and now it's time to further "improve" the land by digging out the stumps and the boulders. I'm guessing the stumps will either be hauled away or chipped; the boulders have a different fate. The power shovel dug a deep pit and, while I watched, scooped up the rocks and unceremoniously—but loudly—dumped them in a mass grave. I'd have given the stones a more honorable fate, but, then again, I wouldn't have disturbed them in the first place.

Tree compost

In addition to ridding the world of horrible boulders, the "cat" had another job: ridding the job-site of any trace of murdered trees. The forest that hadn't been sold off to a sawmill operator or the folks in need of future firewood—I'm complicit here, because I bought three cords of log-length wood—was turned into a huge pile of wood chips. The pile quickly started to heat up and compost, and when the power shovel worked to level it, the pile gave off clouds of steam: tree tears, I suppose.