Farewell

Thirty-five years ago, when we moved into this house, our neighborhood streets were lined with beautiful Pin Oaks that created an archway over the roads.  As we are a corner lot, we had 5 of them, 3 in front and two on the side.  Four of them showed signs of trouble early on and were removed by the county and replaced by another more durable kind of Oak. We are fortunate that our county maintains all the trees that line the roads.  I guess technically that bit of land at the edge of every property belongs to the county.  That happened so long ago that these new trees have matured and provide a lot of shade and look nice, but the branches grow differently and they don't have the same kind of lovely arching branches.  

The remaining Pin Oak directly in front of the house stayed beautiful for many more years and I just loved that tree, but a few years back I began to see signs of disease and slowly this tree started dying from the inside.  After I mourned and very reluctantly acknowledged that it would have to be removed and replaced, I called the county to have them inspect it. They came and marked it for removal but informed us that there was an 18-month to a 2-year wait.   I was Ok with that as it gave me more time to emotionally let it go and it still had many leaves during the summer and provided some nice shade. 

Today, the tree removal team arrived with no warning.  They removed all the small branches, took a break in the truck for about 2 hours....and then left, I suspect due to the rain.  I hope that they will return and finish the job soon.  I am ready to move on. 

It's probably silly to get so attached to a tree anyway.