About a month ago we had three trees removed from our front
yard. Two of them were birch trees and the other was an ash tree. The Ash tree
suffered from a broken branch high up during our Snowtember event four years
ago. Our city lost or suffered damage to about a third of our trees. I find
that hard to believe, but who am I to question the city bean (tree) counters.
Since the damage to the Ash tree I pictured the branch plummeting from on high
and ending up stuck in the roof of the neighbour’s car. Serve them right for
parking on the street. Plus over the years the Ash had grown in a very odd and
ugly direction and it became an aerial highway for squirrels.
The two Birch trees have had a lingering death that lasted
for several years. The extreme cold of this past winter finished them off and
not one leaf sprouted on either tree this spring. Most of the Birch trees in
the neighbourhood suffered in some way or another. I am assuming that the cold
was responsible but I suppose it could be some kind of suicide pact. Do trees
get depressed?
I did mull over trying to cut down the Birch trees myself,
but I had visions of myself sitting in front of the insurance adjuster trying
to explain why I thought I could cut down a dead, mature Birch tree without
crushing the neighbour’s home. That would have been the best possible outcome.
Besides, what on earth would I have done with all of that wood? I like fires a
much as the next guy, but two trees worth of wood and branches is an awful lot
of tree.
In the end I called the Branch Manager Arborists. They cut
down an Elm tree we had about five years ago and I was very happy with the
work. That was another ugly tree which grew far too close to the house.
Anyways, the Branch Manager sent out a couple of tree monkeys with multiple
chain saws and within a couple of hours all that was left were fire ready logs.
They asked me if I wanted to keep the wood and my initial response was NO. Like
I said, a tree or three is a lot of wood and I don’t have many fires any
longer. In the end I kept a pile of wood hoping that the kids (who do have
fires) would be happy to take most of it off of my hands. So far only the
neighbour’s kid wanted any. They also sent a guy out with a machine to chew up
the stump. I have dug up stumps before in my life and I highly recommend not
doing it yourself.
I figure I will turn a couple of bowls in memory of the
trees that kept our family company for so many years. Arwen convinced Maegan
and Brendan that Birch bark was Indian chewing gum when they were much younger
and much more gullible. I have also stripped relatively large sections of bark
off of the logs and have made a few bird houses which look pretty good. I am
also experimenting with making Birch bark rings which look …OK. I have more
experimenting to do. There may be some other crafty things I can do with the Birch
bark, but so far I haven’t thought of them.
Maybe I will convince Hurricane, Tornado and Tsunami that Birch
bark is what the indigenous peoples of Canada
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