Tree Work Ahead

Give me a land of boughs in leaf,
A land of trees that stand;
Where trees are fallen there is grief;
I love no leafless land."

- A.E. Housman

Very mixed feelings here and certainly a very loud and unsettling day ahead. The National Grid Power Company has contracted with tree services to remove trees that are a menace to their power lines. Two 100 ft ancient pines that ring our property must come down today amidst the buzz and clatter of hungry chainsaws. Two men in extended buckets, each working on a different tree at the same time with short bladed saws, set to work this morning. The pine directly in back of the police officer in my linked photo, is deemed strong and straight enough to stay. Those to be felled are trees from my childhood and my mother's and many before us. They have graced this corner with their lofty branches and terrified us in storms since I can remember. To this day I remember the awesome crack, roar and ground shaking thump when the top of one snapped and blew off during Hurricane Donna in 1960. In the years since, that tree sprouted very unstable branches at the wound and continued to climb. They are both unsafe and would have cost us a small fortune to remove ourselves. By this afternoon they will be a memory, leaving only wood chips and the sweet scent of their passing.

Childhood photo of my brother and me with the treetop

Tree work on our corner.

Rotted inside, sadly, it really needed to come down.

The last slice