Today I had to put down two beautiful trees. Healthy but hanging over a bit to the property of the neighbour who put in a compliant with the township. The by-law officer - who didn't returned my call - found too that it looked dangerous and hit the home-owners, I just rent the place, with a bylaw stating it didn't appear to conform with municipalities property standard bylaw.
Afraid by the tone of the letter the home owners decided to cut the trees. Another sign the township doesn't care about trees. They just pull a by-law out of the hat like a magician does with a bunny. In both cases shocking because you don't expect it. File a complaint would be an option but against a township what do you do. At the end it will cost you money and they don't care. Maybe they forget sometimes that we pay them. I wonder if the by-law officer who came and looked knows about trees. I really doubt that. They said it was dead but are dead trees able to get leaves??
Maybe they don't know that there are trees that loose their leaves in winter. Now in a time we are aware about cutting trees, even put yellow ribbons on then to remind everyone that those trees were there before us.
They didn't choose to be in a subdivision. If they were able to tell stories we would have been able to fill gaps in our history.
Now it is 10.00AM and with a friend we discuss how to put them down. I feel sorry for them and take my last pictures. Bye, Bye old fellows. Thanks for the shadow on hot summer days. Now I have to put the air conditioning a knot higher. Viva la nature.
We put a yellow cord around the tree - I wished it was a ribbon - and tapped the tree on the bark. Discussed witch way it would fall one of us is pulling the cord, the other one is warming up the saw. Now its cutting time.
The sound of the chainsaw cutting the tree sounded like cutting a limp. For me it felt that way. Then I heard a snap. I was pulling the cord with all the power I had, but the tree decided to fight back and pulled me. I was yelling to my friend; “I can't hold it, I can't hold it”, but he was not able to hear me because of the sound off the chainsaw. Luckily for me there was another tree near by and was able to strap the rope and myself to it. The tree was putting up a big fight but started to fall down anyway. Not the way we planned but 30 minutes later it was lying down cut in tiny pieces. Even lifting a 3 feet piece was almost impossible. No sign of rotten wood or a dead tree. They let me cut a full grown healthy tree.
Now we had to cut down the other one. Not that big not that tall but a better fighter. It fell against another tree in a way we were not able to pull it to the left or right. Till our knees in the snow, sweating and pulling I admired the tree not giving up so easily. At last the tree gave up. The chainsaw did the rest of the work. Again I was looking at a not dead tree with its branches looking and reaching out to the sky like it was yelling; “Why me, why me”.
I phoned the homeowner and said to his voicemail; “The trees are down, I repeat the trees are down”, like it was a military exercise. Looking back at it I think it was. See the neighbour as another country putting up a fight with a strong ally - the township. The only way we could survive a fight like this and keep the piece is to offer trees- what we did. I hope everybody is happy because I am not. No more birds, no more squirrels jumping from tree to tree. I can only wait for the next complaint. Maybe about falling or blowing leaves of the trees still “save” on the property. Maybe we have to make another bylaw about that because that is the way we deal with problems nowadays.
I have to deal right with two crying kids and somehow come up with a good reason why I had to cut those trees. I can already hear them say; “they didn't do anything, why?”. They will never look at the neighbour again and when they are in their twenties they still will remember this day. I learned them that nature is a gift we are getting, just for free. What do we do with it, destroying it, returning the gift.
Now they are standing there, only 8 feet high, like witnesses of a crime. I gave them names, the little one Xena, de strong and big one Hercules. Just to honour their fight. To anyone out there loving trees, keep up the fighting and hope you end up some day in court and win. The no smoking bylaw was able to pass so may be in the near future the no tree cutting bylaw will come in effect. I lost this battle and feel sad, an experience I will not forget.
Months later the neighbour is daring to speak to us again. “It wasn't about those trees. A tree further on the property caused the problem”, he said. The only thing he wanted was to shorten them but the lady of the township didn't got that at all. Now I even feel more guilt. Taking care of the other trees will be my treatment of that guilt. I am not going to do it myself - I probably kill the tree. This is something for specialized companies so I will give the care to them. Again I feel sorry for Xena and Hercules and if I see a tree down it reminds me of them.
