I came home one evening from work and to my amazement, Kookooboy had a bunch of new cedar trees stacked up in his yard in the area that had been his 'Auxiliary Driveway'. I was amazed. As I walked past him I said, "Looks good. Nice to see a little pride in ownership." Well, that was a mistake. He quit on the spot. I thought the trees would be gone, but Saturday morning he was back at it, but with only three trees. My guess was, he couldn't return them to the nursery. So I sat at my picnic table watching him plant the trees. He must have been annoyed that he had an audience, so he dredged up two old beat up office partitions he had in his stash and dragged them out to the area and set them up between himself and my vantage point. Later that day, it was demonstrated to him that these items were designed for indoor use as a breeze came up and knocked them down. I was sure this would generate a visit from the police to my door, but surprisingly, he figured out what had caused this and shored them up in typical Kookooboy fashion. By this, I mean, he put a few hundred pounds of sand bags, bricks and sidewalk blocks on the feet of these things. At this point, I surmised this was now a permanent addition to the landscape. I dubbed them his 'Big Screen TV's' and they reside there to this day.
So, having attended to his privacy issue, he continued with the tree planting. He proceeded to dig a hole about 4 feet deep by 6 feet across. The tree I thought he was planting in it was about 5 feet tall, so I wondered if he needed to plant something else along with it. It turned out he had misjudged the size of hole required by about three cubic yards. After much eyeballing, pondering and two or three hours of fooling around, the third, last and tallest tree was up - and crooked. The first two were a foot shorter and straight. They didn't seem to require as big a hole either. With the job done, he produced something I didn't think he owned - a garden hose.
Over the course of the rest of that summer and the next, he proceeded to keep three or four inches of standing water under the tallest one. As a result, there are two fairly healthy evergreen trees and one, taller everbrown. I meant to ask him if he knew the taller one was a cedar as well and not a swamp cypress.
November 27: His murderous rampage against his trees is apparently not over yet. Since he can't kill his tallest tree any deader, he re-aimed the drain spout from the eaves to the middle tree. After some wet weather lately and a few freeze/thaw cycles, he now has a small skating rink under it. I can only think of two reasons for this behavior. Either he is a complete idiot about tree's or he is purposely trying to kill them. Both are plausible, considering his mentality. I wonder if he is going to kill them all, then accuse me of something? That would be a typical 'Master Plan' ala Kookooboy. He dreams up all sorts of 'Master Plans' and this may be another. The world of the raving lunatic is a strange thing to observe.
Sensible Behavior Is To Be Avoided
(Common sense lost again)
May 26, 2003: Just when I think he may be reaching the bottom of his 'Bag-O'-Stupid Human Tricks', he does something like this:
Take a close look at the following two pictures:
I know I need a better camera, but see if you can count the number of cedar trees in these two pictures (count the dead one). As I came home today, he was busy pulling the dead one out and putting a brand new healthy one in its place. But, to everyone's (and I mean EVERYONE'S) amazement, he dug a new fourth hole and replanted the dead one again. Maybe he put some pixie dust under it to bring it back to life. I'll add this to his list of fire hazards as it's as dead as it can get and drier than a popcorn fart.
May 29, 2003: Well, Mr. Dead Tree didn't take to the new hole very well. The wind came up tonight and pushed it over on about a 70 degree angle. It'll likely be resting against the fence by morning. I'm sure glad I'm not Mother Nature, 'cause she's gonna get shit. Might have to put a few hundred pounds of concrete blocks on the roots. The new tree doesn't seem to need nearly as much water as the dead one did. In fact, it appears to need none.
Update: July 2003. The new tree is now almost as dead as the dead one. That didn't take him long.
Update: September 17, 2003: Two Ok trees, Two VERY dead trees. Maybe buy more live ones next year?
Update: May 20, 2004: I was kidding last September (above), or so I thought. Yet again, we need new trees. Three of them this time. But we need to keep the dead ones. Why, I'm not sure. Neither can I even dream up any rational reason why anyone would keep them, let alone take the time to replant them in a different location -AGAIN! Perhaps it's not totally clear to one of us that they are as dead as they can possibly be. So the current tree count is 5 live ones and 2 dead ones. I suspect the tree count will remain the same for the rest of the year, however, I expect the Live Tree to Dead Tree ratio to change. This project was accomplished in broad daylight and in the rain. Are cards missing from his deck? Elevator doesn't go to the top? Screw loose, possibly missing altogether, a few marbles missing? Nine Pin Bowling? A few neurons misfiring? All of the above. This behavior is just plain sad as far as I'm concerned.
Three spanky new trees! I wonder if they're of the 'Soon-to-be-Everbrown' type?
And speaking of 'Everbrowns', one of them is outside the creosote boundary! You just can't trust a dead tree!
May 28, 2004: "...Wind gusts in excess of 3 mph today with high probability of showers expected." Some minor damage reported in the wake of these gale force winds. AAAHHH!!
Would this suggest, perhaps, that dead trees have a diminished sense of balance?
He thinks he's playing with our minds?
June 1, 2004: Some repairs were being performed last evening. This halted for some reason when I went out to the car and walked past the job site. During the night, however, some major changes took place. He now has seven live trees, spaced about a foot apart. The dead tree with the balance problem stood back up and it turns out, the other dead one is a bit of a gypsy. It found a home right outside my back door.
The line of reasoning that would produce this behavior is at best childish. At worst, more than a little neurotic. This is what fills his day and consumes his life, I'm sure. And it gives me reasons to update this web site. So balance is maintained.
I'm very confident I could do better if my sole purpose in life was to try to drive my neighbor crazy, as opposed to just occasionally reporting on his foolishness. Actually, I'm sure I do drive him crazy(er) just by existing. Oh, well. I might retire some day and get a new hobby...
This will be the view out my back door from now on, no doubt.
Dead Tree Takes Center Stage
June 22, 2005: We had a fairly heavy rain last night with high winds. One of Kookooboys fine dead tree specimens lost its balance and fell over. However, repairs came swiftly. Only a week later, Kookooboy was able to find a window of opportunity (we went to the store) to sneak out, and in broad daylight, prop the poor thing back up straight.
June 29, 2005: But, alas, our friend was a little wobbly on its roots and another evening of rain caused it to pass out again. It's like watching a slow motion tree version of those horrific pictures they love to show us of cows affected with BSE.
Tree Down Tree Up Tree Down Again
Dead trees require more maintenance than one would think.
July 10, 2005: ...and the tree saga just keeps on going. This is getting real tedious. Today's repairs involved some new ones and more dead tree relocations. I suspect the one on the end may be a little too close to the sidewalk. It may cause a problem when it matures. I wonder how big dead cedar trees eventually become? This reminds me of a joke. A woman goes into the grocery store looking for a turkey for her family. After looking over the frozen birds, she asks the clerk, "Do these turkeys get any bigger?" The clerk says, "No, Ma'am. They're dead"
The new one, third one from the live end of the row, I believe, has a snow balls chance in hell of surviving. That was the hole that was originally dug way too big then filled in with a 24'' sidewalk block. This is the location where all the currently dead trees were originally planted.
Oh, yea. Forgot to mention. He assured me again, I am going to be prosecuted. What a knob this guy is.
September 19, 2005: I think one of the dead trees went out on a bender. It doesn't seem to be standing very well. You know, it would be at this point that I would consider dead trees to be more trouble than they're worth.
Fall in, Soldier!
I wonder how long it will take Kookooboy to sober this bad actor up?
I don't know about you, but unless one of these trees does something really outrageous, I'm tired of reporting on them.
JD9's Fine Yard The Auxiliary Driveway The Transit System
My Dangerous Barbecue My Faulty Parking New Fence New Trees
The Garbage Can Incident How 'Koo-Koo Boy' was Coined The Seniors Complex
Previous Owners Miscellaneous Stories about Koo-Koo Boy
Updates & New Adventures The Manhole Opinions?