OH NO!

Remember this piece?  Last July I posted about finding a ginko tree on the trail I take from the parking lot to my studio.

Earlier in June I picked a few leaves to use in a demonstration I was giving.  That was a rather hurried creation so I did not keep the piece.  (Ended up back in my lump of clay.)

Well, the other day I was prepared to make some more jewelry using the ginko leaf but was not pleasantly surprised when I discovered that all the lower branches (the ones I could reach) had been chopped off.  Of course it was 90 degrees out and they had been cut several days before.  So all the branches were brown and crispy.  (They were also laying on the side of a very steep bank that led to the river.)  My nickname when I was a kid was Ally Bumps because I fell a lot.  I wasn't about to take any chances, even if they had still been green.

Anyone got a ladder?  (Oh wait a minute..... I could fall from that too!)