Gentlemen… Start Your Chainsaws!

Workers are arriving as I write this, preparing to timber a tallish tree in our backyard. It’s an Australian brush cherry tree that’s as close to being a nuisance as I can call a living organism just doing its thing. From an actuarial standpoint, it’s a risk being situated much too close to the house, only a few feet from it and it’s long been left to overgrow the roof. From a gardenerial perspective, it’s just a pain in the butt to clean up after almost year round. If it’s not dropping its fruit by the pounds, then it’s raining leaves and these odd little fine feathery things that need sweeping.

Still, I can always deal with that latter aspect and I hate destroying something that’s been thriving just because whoever planted it however many years ago (20/30/40 years maybe?) didn’t consider the ramifications of its location. On top of that the tree’s trunk has proved a great source of amusement/exercise for Jiggy and Pumpkin, both of whom like to charge at it and scale its trunk as far as they can before hanging from it suspended by their claws until they release and drop back down to the ground.

But the fact is that in recently changing homeowner insurance policies the tree is the one thing that troubled the insurance company. And while its recommendation was just to trim it back away from the roof, Susan and decided that we shouldn’t prolong the inevitable.

And now the chainsaws have started. I will certainly photograph the aftermath of their endeavors, but I don’t think I can bear to watch them in action. In the meantime here’s a before shot of the arbor snapped earlier this morning.