Earth Day Rebel: The Planet is in Peril!

This is a picture of my neighbor's house and my house, it is behind the tree on the right. This photo was taken a few years ago and aside from the toilet paper, it hasn't changed much. We've trimmed it and it grew right back, over and over again. Because I'm an Earth Day Rebel, it sure looks different now!

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Bzzzzzzz Bzzzzzz Bzzzzzzz Big ugly sap spitting tree, this is my friend Mr. Chainsaw. This actually happened the other day, but since it was during the week of Earth Day, I'll tell you today. We rebelled a couple of days early.

We had a great big huge tree in our front yard. And the front yard is about the same size as an average bathroom, very small! We park under the tree and so do our next door neighbors; it hangs over their driveway too. The thing grows so fast, it was hard to keep up with trimming the branches and they get so long that they hang down and get in your face. The tree was constantly raining sap, leaves, bird poop... you name it, tree gunk! Yuck!

I have to say, it did provide some nice shade. But, on a cool day in April, the shade didn't seem so important. Now that the tree is gone, my daughter warned me against third degree burns if I touch my steering wheel this summer. Eh, I will just wear mittens. Maybe I'll start keeping my mitts in the freezer.

Yes, I said it: the tree is gone! We hired a couple of guys to cut it down and they hauled it off to the dump. Back to the earth - hey, maybe I'm not such an Earth Day Rebel after all! Killed a tree but gave it back. The landfill is a mountain in the making, right?

The girls and I watched all the excitement from the safety of the upstairs window. Might be killing a tree, but I didn't want to get konked on the head and become a victim of my own curiosity.

I don't know much about logging, except what I've seen on Ax Men (the reality tv show about loggers), but it seemed to me our hired loggers went about cutting the tree all wrong. First, they flung a rope up into the top branches and then tied the chainsaw to it. Then one guy scampered up there like a squirrel and used the chainsaw on a rope to cut off branches. This is not how they do it on TV! Once all the branches were on the ground, they cut the trunk down to a tall stump, then a shorter stump, then a stump that was nearly flush with the ground.


Why didn't they just chop it down at the ground level first and then instead of climbing the tree, they could have cut off the branches with their feet on the ground. Eh, what do I know. Maybe it's just more fun to use a chainsaw on a rope.

The guys made a couple of runs to the dump and that's that! We are the proud new owners of a stump! And we killed a tree. This is the 4th tree to be sacrificed for my happiness. Three of them in the back yard met Mr. Chainsaw in years past. The planet is in peril!