Requiem for a Tree

My yard has a lot of trees. more than 20 that are 50 feet or taller. It was one of the reasons my first wife and I bought the place: it was, as they say, a mature treed lot. That was nearly 30 years ago. All have grown substantially.

The majority of trees are still there swaying lackadaisically in the breeze. Some have been removed to provide more light or allow for the expansion of the house. Others were damaged and a threat to life and property.

This is that story (in short form).

A good chunk of cedar tree on the carport.

On a blustery night last November, after returning from massages, we found the above: a large part of one of our cedars had split and fallen on the carport. As is common with cedars, a soft wood, it had a co-dominant trunk, a tree fork in the parlance, which is a fancy way of saying the trunk split off into 2 sections. One of the sections broke. This left a rather significant gash in the tree, not to mention the 40 foot section laying on the carport pinning the power line. The cable and the outside light illuminating the driveway were torn off the house.

Surprisingly, we didn’t lose power and the good folks at PSE cleared the tree from the power line.

Now, I’m not a big fan of taking trees down. I like having the trees, they shade the yard, are a haven for birds and squirrels, and are part and parcel to the northwest. However, a broken tree is also a danger to, as mentioned above, life and property. I don’t want to have to take it down, but I don’t want the rest of the tree to break and land on the carport or house or the neighbor’s.

So, reluctantly, we decided to have the tree taken down. This, of course, was after getting most of the broken part off the carport and the driveway and the roof. Big trees are a pain in the butt.

And it’s not cheap!

And it’s on the property line. Fortunately, the neighbors didn’t want the tree falling on their house when the storms return in November and allowed the tree guys access in bringing the tree down.

Took 4 hours.

Now I have 60 feet of tree rounds to deal with. It’s times like this when I think of all the people who admire the yard with its mature trees and how nice it looks and how one day their trees will be big too.

Exactly.