Our new house had some sickly trees that were looming large and spitting threats of impending doom.  After deliberation, debate and the obligatory process of being inspected by the Mt. Dora tree permit dude…. arrangements were made for their removal.  One dead-tree-removal crew….comin’ right up!

Yesterday was the big day.  There were tree guys in trees, big machines, lots of sawing and….bonus… a protester!!!

Early in the day I noticed a woman sitting in my driveway. A woman who looked familiar because… it was a neighbor of mine.   I thought she was just watching all the goings on, etc.  An hour later, she was still there.  I then noticed that she looked either angry or like she was crying.  I couldn’t tell from the distance but…. I made the executive decision to not find out.  I’m neighborly like that! 

Fast forward 2 hours.

I now see the same woman walking along the street that borders our backyard…the backyard where the tree guys are currently working.  I see her over and over and over again.  The lady is walking around the block, continually, as a means of circling my house.  The tree guys watch her, wave hello.  She crosses her arms, stands and glares.  Rinse and repeat.

After visiting with one of my other neighbors I figured out that I, a blogger, have my very own protester.  Do you know how awesome that is???  I thought I was just having a mundane little day of tree workers and such and then voila!  I got my very own protester!  I must be livin’ right…. blogger + having your own personal protester = woo hoo! While my protester does have a history of picketing (with signs) all sorts of tree work being done in the city… I was not worthy of signs.  But, I humbly accepted my gift of a signless protester by emailing all my friends, detailing the events on Facebook and writing multiple blog posts in my head.  I’m classy like that!

So what is life like with a protester of your very own?  Well… there is staring and glaring and arm crossing and blocking your driveway and more staring and circling and…. you get the idea.

My protester never spoke to me, never asked me any questions.  Matter of fact, I have now lived here for nearly 9 months and she has never introduced herself or even waved.  I didn’t warrant even a “welcome to the neighborhood” so I guess this is her version of the welcoming committee (and as a blogger… I couldn’t be happier).  So… I know very little about my protester except to say that she is tireless:  she stayed on the job for 10 hours, endured a rainstorm and would not be deterred.

I, the not-so-tireless target, spent much of the morning clueless.  I should’ve gotten her picture while she was in the driveway but I was too dense to realize what was going on.  By mid-afternoon, however, I was a pregnant chic with a camera, a chocolate craving and a mission.  I didn’t want to do the direct approach. (Hi, I’m Kris.  We’ve never met but I’d like to take your picture because I totally intend on making fun of this on my blog.  Nice to meet ya! CLICK.) I’m entirely too southern for that.  I had to go the sneaky route.

I waited for Dana or my Dad to return home and I was going to send them out with the assignment but… no luck.  Then I figured out how I could Kinnear her.  As the tree guys worked on the trees in front of the house, my little protester decided to sit on the curb and watch.  And I pounced.  I aimed my camera toward the tree dudes but zoomed in on Ms. Perseverance and click….one picture of a protester.

One Relaxing Protester

At one point my neighbor informed me that this lady juuuuust might chain herself to one of my trees.  I’m not entirely clear about whether or not he was kidding but I do know one thing:  If she does… I’m TOTALLY taking a picture!