I spent some time this week mucking off my desk. There were piles of mail to get through with bills to pay and accounts to reconcile.
I don’t like bookkeeping, and like it even less when, for “convenience and efficiency” it now takes me about 15 minutes to write a check with the assistance of QuickBooks. I used to stick a three-part check, with carbon paper, in the typewriter and pay a month’s worth of business bills in a couple of minutes.
Our accountant now insists that we do it on QuickBooks, which would be fine except they have made it difficult, especially if writing a check for a one-time purchase from somebody I’ll likely never see again.
I bought a snow plow attachment for the tractor last fall from a neighbor’s brother-in-law’s cousin in Montpelier. It was never clear to me whether it was the brother-in-law or the cousin who lived in Montpelier. One of them was in Logan, and when he delivered it to me, the truck had Wyoming plates.
But entering that transaction got really complicated and ended up under “Miscellaneous Expenses.” No, I don’t need to send him a Form 1099, though QuickBooks was pretty sure it wouldn’t let me print the check until that had been resolved.
Anyway, today’s batch of bills was easy and routine, though any time I’m into bookkeeping tends to sour the mood. I walked them out to the mailbox, about a quarter mile from the house, on one of the most glorious spring mornings imaginable. That cured everything.
The river is still going strong, the sandhill cranes were circling around making their weird noises. A little snow remains on the highest peaks. There are a surprising number of flowering bushes along the lane — serviceberry, honeysuckle, and chokecherry, all in full bloom. A month from now it will just be leaves. The forest is mostly aspen, with some lodgepole pines arching over the lane.
By the time I got back to the house, I was sneezing and my eyes watering. Hay fever season has arrived.
The lodgepoles are amazing. Their small yellow blossoms practically explode with pollen if jiggled at all. So, naturally, I had to jiggle them. Flipping the blossom with a couple of fingers sends a plume out. To see something really dramatic, grab a low branch, pull it as low as you can, then let go. When it springs back up, smacking other branches along the way, the cloud of pollen flies, sending a plume of yellow pollen into the air.
It’s irresistible, which is why my eyes were almost swollen shut by the time I got to the house.
My inner 5-year-old always gets the best of me. I have piles of “cool rocks” I’ve carried home for no good reason. I knew exactly what the consequences of shaking the lodgepole branches would be.
I put the mail out, but the letter carrier hadn’t come yet, so there was a second trip a couple of hours later to pick up the incoming mail. And on the second trip, I was shaking the pollen out of the trees again. I had to change shirts when I got back to the house. Might be a UPS package this afternoon and another excuse to shake it up.
The cottonwood is blowing now, too. It’s just messy and nowhere near as fun as the lodgepoles, or as allergy inducing as the chokecherries. The road up to the hay farm is thick with chokecherries, and driving up there is almost asthma inducing. The blossoms will be gone in a week, but for now, it’s fragrant and fun.
It’s been a busy couple of days. I’ve got a couple of guys painting the outside of my house. It’s long overdue. I did it myself last time around, but considered dealing with tall ladders, and ultimately a bucket lift to get to the top, and decided to bring in the pros.
They aren’t happy with the cottonwood blowing into wet paint. Next door, at what was my parents’ house, my niece who owns it now is clearing a fire break around it. She had a crew in there cutting down some huge trees, mostly spruces, that were not just close to the house but kind of leaning on it.
Fire safety is on everybody’s mind after the huge fire up the road last fall, and insurance premium increases drive the point home.
It was kind of painful watching a huge spruce dangling from a crane. I remember “helping” Dad plant them. They were only a couple of feet tall at the time, the gallon-bucket specials from the nursery in Marion. Even as a little kid, it seemed kind of pointless.
“Someday they will be taller than the house,” Dad told me. I didn’t believe him, but not only are they taller than the house, they were damaging the roof and had to go. Time flies, or something like that.
The dogs were running laps, checking on the tree removal (one of them was a favorite spot to pee, and the confusion was obvious), then back to get in the painters’ way, snagging treats along the way. Everybody keeping busy in their own way.
Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
