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Tuesday, April 6, 2010

A Lost Oak

Oakwood is a mix of extremes, from three story Victorians down to cottages like ours. The neighbors to the south, Judy and Christy, decided their cottage wasn't big enough and are adding a wing out toward our lot line. I am not necessarily against this, after all, our small house has been added onto five times, but this addition will overlook and take away some privacy from my garden. No more nude cigar smoking.

Unfortunately this is also necessitating the removal of a couple of trees. The angry snarl of chain saws has been going on all morning, removing branches from a big bur oak near the property line, leaving it standing naked, like an oaken Venus de Milo. They just felled the limbless giant, still 30' tall and three feet across at the base. Our house shook and the windows rattled when it hit the earth. It left a terrible gaping hole in the space it occupied. That will heal with time and no one will remember that the Venus was there, standing guard for 200 years. Still, I'll miss her presence, her summer shade, though I suppose it does open new planting opportunities in a now sunnier garden :o)

1 comment:

kevin c ruberg said...

My neighbor is considering cutting down three lge. pines on our mutual border...One is leaning perilously towards our garage but I told him I had faith it would hang around for a good bit more ...I gave him some food for thought9 the beauty ,the ecosystem blah blah blah ) but if the chainsaws start to whirr while i'm around I may have to go tree hugger ..I should probably see if our shade tree commission has any jurisdiction(he said no)we live in a once very rural town that's mainly republican(dumbass) voters and you don't see many giveashits in the corners of their eyes ....or mots ...neither