The only two pines I remember seeing infested with beetles are leaning over my house. I go out to watch; there's a whole lot of chewing going on. My gaze shifts from tree to house pretending it's the end. The trees are falling toward the house; sometimes they miss by inches, others I'm crushed in my sleep.

I've thought about climbing to the tree's top with a cable and fastening it to my shed. Then, when I rip through it with a chainsaw, it will end the tin relic's misery. This is my first shed junkier than the contents.

If pines are unpopular, chinaberry trees are the plague. How they began life on my farm I'll never know. There were eight demons saluting the sky with their shriveled berries. After six months of dirty looks there was six minutes of mayhem. They weren't leaning, just living and dropping enough berries to cover the county.

Noted tree expert Carl Whitcomb called the chinaberry "a worthless landscape tree which produces many seeds and suckers that become a severe nuisance." Mayhem to a tree is a chainsaw tapping on the bark. The rings showed twelve years of the good life. Sawdust flying through the air showed it the forest floor.

As a kid, we mistakenly called the tallow trees chinaberries. Many consider them to be weed trees, but their fall color won me over. I noticed the sweet gums grow like weeds in these parts. Martha, my giant oak, has two majestic neighbors. She's flanked by an unbelievable but dying cottonwood (sixteen feet around) and a impressive black walnut.

In-between crashing trees, I converted an old cow pen to a chicken coop. Nothing beats waking to the rooster's crow. I learned the hard way--that sound doesn't come easy. We're not the only ones singing I feel like chicken tonight. We buried the wire and for good measure threw in strands of barbwire all around. If dogs want to jump over or dig under, they'll need some pliers.

This time I'm sticking with Old English Bantams. The banties eat less and hustle more for their lives. They will mostly remain in their pen though. The hatchery is in Cameron and twenty-four will arrive during Spring Break.

After digging in the blackland gumbo of Caddo Mills, I'm loving this sandy soil. Postholes are born absent of agony; the twin blades slicing the soft soil is music to my ears. I could dig postholes for a living after pounding that blackland. Granted, I live in a valley where the sand runs thick and rich.

Marcy wasn't due until Thursday, but I came home to find her sporting two girls and a boy on her belly. The boy is silver blue; one girl is dark blue, the other blue/tan. I'm keeping the boy and the dark blue one; another teacher wants the other. With dangerous pines, it might take three to wake the neighbors.