Reducing our Footprint

About a year and a half ago, one of our willow trees died. Perhaps it was due to the drought or perhaps it was just old age. We'll never know. All I know is that the Spring before Linus was born, it never leafed out. My husband in a fit of laziness optimism insisted on waiting to be sure the tree was really dead. Spring turned into Summer and the tree was still dead.

Of course, that summer we were busy preparing for Linus's birth so we never got around to chopping it down. When my dad came to meet Linus, he spent an afternoon of his visit attacking the dead tree with nothing more than a hacksaw because his crazy, hormonal daughter wanted it gone. He managed to whittle the tree down to little more than a stump but could do no more without a chainsaw.

Those hormone crazed weeks turned into sleepless months until over a year had passed, and that stump still held a prominent spot in our front yard. Nevermind the fact that I had often requested my hubby to borrow a chainsaw from a friend or find some other way to remove the stump, it remained undisturbed.

What I didn't know was that like everything else in my husband's life, there was a plan- just not one of his actual making.

Fast forward to tonight. After mowing the lawn, Adrian comes to me and says, "Look outside and see if you notice anything different." Perplexed, I head to the front door and begin looking across the lawn. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary I think to myself, "Does he really want me to praise him for mowing the lawn?" That's when I spotted it (or at least where it used to be). The stump was gone. Had Adrian really dug the entire stump out with a shovel without any prodding from me? Not so much.

Instead, he took care of that stump in the ultimate green fashion. He let it rot away until he could just pick up the remains and throw them into the wooded area behind our house.

That's my husband... always thinking green. I mean, just imagine how much effort pollution he saved by not chainsawing it out sooner?