A PERSONAL TOUCH

While it is a verifiable fact that Christmas at the Schmidt household was nothing short of spectacular this year, I must point out that two gifts stood out as more special than all the others.
Michelle's cookbook was a labor of love, creative as well as entertaining, and everyone got one. It is a mystery where she drudged up those old picutres, but she managed to make us all look young and beautiful. Hurray!
And then there is the calendar we have all come to depend upon, with fantastic artwork by none other than our talented Adam. If you haven't taken the time to get a good look at it, I recommend you do so. Wow! Many thanks to Bob and Julia for taking the time to put this attractive calendar together.
And now, we say farewell to 2008. It is time to hang up our 2009 calendars, wiggle into our aprons and get down to some serious cooking. I plan to whip up a delicious Cheese Spoon Bread. Thanks to Michelle, I don't have to call and inconvenience anyone for the recipe.

MORE ON THE OLD PECAN TREE

This is a picture of the top of the pecan tree we had to take down. If you click to enlarge it, you will clearly see the now misplaced woodpecker at work. I am not an advocate of removing sound trees, but this one had become unsightly, and worse yet, dangerous. Just the day before it came down, on a dry and windless day, a large branch came crashing down- broke two of the fence pickets.

You may revisit an old post in my blog dated December 2007 and titled A GUST OF WIND for an example of the kind of surprises the old pecan tree was prone to spring on us.

OLD PECAN TREE

It was sad to see the old pecan tree come down. It was quite an ordeal, what with a cherry picker and three brave Mexicans sawing away half a mile up in the air and easing the chunks to the ground with a pulley. It took them two hours to complete the job that probably took the tree a hundred years to produce. We don't know what to do with the empty space it has left in our yard. Frances has ideas, and it will be our project for next year to get some decent landscaping done. Meanwhile, there is a very misplaced woodpecker. Doesn't know where to peck now that his tree is gone. I hear him pecking here and there, trying out new trees, but so far he has not found the likes of the old pecan tree he so diligently pecked at day after day.