Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Monday, November 21, 2011

Chopping down the hood

Last Tuesday, I was working from home. Or, rather, trying to work from home. Our neighbor down the street was having a giant tree removed from their front yard, which caused a considerable amount of noise from all the sawing and ground shattering that was going on.

From the looks of it, it appeared to be an old growth tree that was extremely tall. I can understand why they were having it removed. It occupied a great deal of their front yard as well as blocking the light to their house as well as the neighbor's. Additionally, I'm sure the size of the tree added to the dangers of limb damage since we live in a pretty windy area of Seattle.

I was sad to see it go - it was a beautiful pine tree and the landscape looks totally different now. I could gauge the weather based on how much swaying was going on with that tree. And, now I can see far too much of that aqua colored home than before. I prefer to be looking at that huge tree.

The tree service that cut it down left quite a bit of it in our neighbor's driveway, most of the pieces being cross sections of the trunk. Yesterday, Emma and I wandered over to take a closer look and count the tree rings. I was completely surprised to see that there were only 56 rings on this tree. I figured it to be much older, but it makes sense that it was planted when the homes around here were built. Our house was built in 1956 and I believe the homes on the street behind us weren't built much earlier.

Anyway, I hope our neighbors get plenty of benefit from the warmth in wood this giant tree now provides them. We've got several oversized trees on this street that I'm sure will meet a similar fate in years to come.

8 comments:

Green Bean said...

And hopefully they play a new tree in its stead.

Brad K. said...

And here I thought you were about to relate that you took the trunk chunks or the trimmings home, and build a Hugelkultur raised garden bed mound.

Have they replaced the tree, yet? Perhaps you could interest them in a fruitful hazelnut or plum tree or three. . lol!

Rachel said...

It can be quite deceiving how old a tree is, especially in wetter areas of our country.

Unknown said...

Do you think they'll actually use the wood for fuel? Maybe there's a chance you could barter some of it off them?

Robj98168 said...

My neighbors cut down a giant fir in their back yard... I was not too upset as it was dangerously close to my house, in fact the bedroom. It was in its 50's as well. Pine trees are so bad for windy conditions!

Miss Sub said...

Could be roots getting into the foundation or pipes too. BF just lost a gorgeous tree in front of his house because of pipes.

That wasn't one of the old monkey trees in our neighborhood, was it? Makes me extra sad those are slowly disappearing.

Unknown said...

unfortunately, i hope they will plant a new one

Kyle Xanders said...

Have they replaced the tree? Well, I bet your neighbors got plenty of benefit from the warmth in wood this giant tree now provides them.

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