Living in the sticks

When you live in the sticks, expect sticks.

Especially when the wind blows.

It's been a particularly bad season for sticks in my yard up here in the sticks. And it's not something I can get used to.

I'm a relative newcomer to the sticks. For the first part of my adult life I lived in the city, in North Cambridge, Mass. For the next part of my adult life I lived in the suburbs, on the Massachusetts North Shore.

Now, in a semi-retired, semi-working part of my adult life, I live in the sticks of New Hampshire.

Our house is surrounded by trees -- lots of looming pine, an occasional oak and maple, and a smattering of cedar that gives my neighborhood its name.

These trees, judging from their size, have been around forever. They've got way more rings around their middle than I do.

And every time the wind blows they shed bits of themselves, which is okay under normal circumstances, but the amount of wind we've been having lately just doesn't seem normal.

There was the big late February blow that really did a number, sending branches and tree detritus to litter up the yard. One of the pines toppled over just over the line in Irv's yard, so that was his problem to deal with.

But there have been subsequent days of high winds that continue to rain sticks down on the yard.

I've spent a lot of time hunched over playing a pick-up-sticks game that really wasn't much fun.

My big concern is that if my little corner of the sticks is getting full of this tinder, what's happening in the real sticks, the big forests? The tinder there must be accumulating in tremendous numbers.

Is there a huge forest fire just waiting to happen for just the right lightning strike or the careless match or cigarette butt?

I can do without the succession of windy days. The less wind, the fewer sticks.

And don't get me started about the amount of leaves ... or the acorns ... or the pine needles.