The saws came today.
I had four trees cut down today. Two birch trees in the back yard, and one birch and a fruit plum in the front yard. Tonight all that remains are chips from where they stood, their stumps ground down below the ground surface.
It wasn’t easy coming to this action. The birches were all planted by the previous owner in honor of their three grandchildren about ten years ago. All three were between twenty and forty feet in height today. But they were not planted correctly nor nurtured in their formative years. The root structures were all too shallow, the plantings too close to the house for their tree types, and all showed signs of disease. The roots of one birch in the back threatened the underground drainage. The sole birch in front was a safety hazard. It had an ever-increasing lean that one day would bring it down on the house. Plus, its location was a security concern, both from the street looking in and from the house looking out.
After about a year weighing up the decision, the saws came today.
The fruit plum was felled not by choice. Beautiful with pink flowers in the spring it had deep ruddy red leaves all summer and autumn. Perhaps 25 feet tall with a 30-foot canopy. It came under the blades today by accident. Last March a freak windstorm grabbed it and pushed hard. The roots gave way. Since then the tree leaned little more by little more. An arborist said it could be saved, save one critical reason. It had been planted over utility lines of gas, electricity, telephone and cable TV. Any root collapse of the tree had dire consequences of severing one or more of these lines.
The saws came today.
Within two hours this morning all were gone, cut down, stripped, chipped and gone in the back of a truck. Tonight both yards look open and airy, and lonely. There will be no subtle rustling of leaves through open windows as we lay in bed tonight. The birds no longer have hidden perches to sing and dance. Their shadows will no longer march across the grass, the flowers and the house.
The thirty foot conifers in back are still here. They’re fine. If trees really are those magnificent sentinels of The Land, those evergreens must also be in mourning, their brothers and sister taken away just like children pulled apart and taken to separate foster homes.
Because the saws came today.
As a kid I used to climb them. Lots. Ten years old. Fifteen years old. I was up in trees. Twenty feet up. Thirty feet up. No ropes to secure me. The breezes are better up there. So are the fears as the tree would sway this way. That way. Hold on!
Built tree houses, too.
Even the 200 foot Doug Firs a block away, over there, and over there, cannot reduce the pain. Maybe I need to take a road trip this weekend, about two hours from here, and sit among the stands 1,000 year old Hemlocks and Cedars to rejuvenate.
Yet, even before the decision was made we were making plans what would replace them. We can’t live without trees. We will replace the two in back with a hybrid Pacific Dogwood. A good understory tree. Great canopy. Summer shade tree. It will bring at little bit of home to my Southern born and bred wife.
I get to choose one for the front yard. A conifer. Going to defy convention and help bring back the native canopy. Don’t give a damn what the neighbors may think. A Doug Fir? Western Hemlock? Red Ceder? All depends what the soil tests reveal. We sit on a 300-foot high terminal moraine left by the floods from the collapse of the ice dams that created Lake Missoula. Any replacement trees need to suck up the water fast before the moraine sucks it away.
If I go that route I will never live to see their full glory 100 years from now. I’m fine with that. I’m just trying to atone for the sin I made today.
Because the saws came today.
