I contributed to global warming more than
usual recently, so: World, I’m sorry. But that tree had it coming.
A 2019 study published in the journal Science concluded the Earth has enough
open space to plant more than a trillion trees. This, it noted, is enough to
capture some 800 billion tons of carbon dioxide, or roughly the equivalent of a
cable news pundit’s daily output of hot air. Actual experts said this could
bring greenhouse gas levels down to a number not
seen since the days before American women were allowed to vote.
Yet I, avowed advocate of suffrage and not
suffering death by polar ice cap sweat, gave the order to take out a four-story
black oak that had shaded our back porch for decades. It was not an easy
decision. Initially.
Our family had considered the tree’s removal
since 2012 when a similar-sized black oak a few dozen yards away snapped during
Superstorm Sandy. Only months earlier that tree, which leaned heavily away from
our home, had been pronounced completely healthy and solid by a formerly reputable tree company.
But Sandy didn’t care. Her winds split it horizontally at a hollow point below
the trunk’s junction, sending its top half toward our house. It demolished our porch,
and the tips of its branches grazed the sliding glass door my daughter, then
12, stood in front of while she watched two other trees on our yard’s edge fall
over in a completely different direction. So much for physics.
The black oak that remained loomed fairly
close to my daughter’s top floor bedroom, such a threat that nighttime storms often
sent her scurrying to the couch in our basement. But that was untapped potential.
Its real harm came from falling acorns.
Hundreds, if not thousands of acorns. All the
size of tiny Lego bricks and 10 times as painful under your bare feet. They starting
to drop earlier, for longer periods of time and in greater abundance with each
passing year. This I found amazing given the increasing number of dead, bare
branches throughout this mammoth figure that kept summer temperatures bearable
on our deck so I could be kept away from the dreaded fourth hour of the Today show.
A call to our tree guy, notably not the same one
who told us that other oak was as solid as U.S. Steel, brought the news. The
tree appeared to have a root issue, and pruning now wouldn’t prevent him from
soon coming back for a bigger job.
I had been expecting this, so I gave him the
OK. Still, as the tree’s last day approached, my wife and I questioned whether this
was the right decision. The large trees and the shade they provided were among the
features that attracted us to this place initially. But, over 15 years there, a
dozen major ones had fallen or died on their own in addition others we had
cleared to create more yard for the kids, the dog and ourselves.
Maybe this tree guy was as wrong as the
previous one? The entry to our neighborhood featured several trees with their
rotted, hollowed insides practically spilling onto the roadway yet they managed
to stay upright. Maybe we also had an exception to the obvious?
Early that morning of the cutting, after
fetching the day’s newspapers and using their bags to fetch our dog’s comments
on the previous day’s events, I walked up to the mighty black oak’s trunk. I gazed
up through its lichen stained boughs and tapered dark green leaves one last
time, and sighed.
And I hugged it. I literally became a tree
hugger. I thanked the oak for all its service, patted the bark and turned to
head back into the house.
Sitcom convention holds that a cluster of
acorns should have immediately smacked me atop the head. Instead, as usual, I
stepped barefoot onto some fallen ones, in my pain, ended up hopping upon a few
dozen more.
Later that day, I stepped outside to check on
the chainsaw’s progress, which is an odd way to describe the ending of a life. There
were some holes in a few upper boughs and a four-foot section of the trunk,
just above the main junction, that proved hollower than my heart.
You truly make me laugh out loud ~ please post more often!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Julie. I'll do what I can.
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