three days ago they cut down a very old tree from our deceased next door neighbor’s front yard. the tree was over 120 feet tall and old. gina and sophia counted 89 rings on the stump that remained. i witnessed most of the cutting and it was pretty sad as there was nothing wrong with the tree. the irony of the situation was that the tree needed to be cut so that an oil spill could be cleaned up. the fifty year old oil tank that was under the tree had been leaking for many years and had contaminated a deep and wide area of the ground by the front yard of the house.

ruth's tree as it stood after 90 years

initially they had called a tree cutter from PA who was a total maniac. he just climb up the tree and started cutting huge branches and dropping them right onto the street. there was no way we were going to let him cut down the upper branches as they were over our house. we quickly put an end to his day or he would’ve really made a mess.

the crazy pennsylvanian

note the branch about to hit the ground. each branch probably weighed 500 lbs.

a week later came the tree pro with his cherry picker. using a series of pulleys he cut and lowered all the branches within two hours the tree was almost gone. i couldn’t stay and document the whole thing, and so by the time i got back from work all that remained was a pile of sawed off trunk pieces.

half the tree is gone

this whole week i’ve been watching ken burns’ documentary on the national parks and reading the latest national geographic magazine that focuses on the preservation of the california redwoods. ironically, right next door, a living being was killed because of our dependence to fossil fuels. now we wait while they dig a huge ditch and begin the clean up that is slated to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and will involve the federal government if it reaches the water table. goodbye tree.

goodbye tree