Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven’t done a thing. You are just talking.
Wangari Maathai
My health right now, not so great. A few years ago I woke up to see my favorite tree missing. The story is below. The pictures are of that tree today. If it could survive maybe I could too.
This happened July 2014.
It is morning as I wake, after gently pushing a cat or two out of the way. I look over and see the montage of my kids on the wall, now grown up and gone. Then I look out the high window and enjoy my 60 foot tall black poplar.
The redwing blackbirds singing me awake in the summer and the squawk of the Bluebirds that remind me in the winter the need for their breakfast of sunflower seeds. All were welcome Even the swarm of chickadees that welcomed me with a low altitude flyby to remind me, its time to get up and face the day.
I only have one black poplar on my property. It survives the onslaught of the tent caterpillars, heavy snowfalls, tornado force winds , hail and much more every year. The dark green leaves shaped like the ace of spades reaching almost 8 inches across.
Apparently in Britain they are an endangered species only a thousand trees left. I guess they have power companies over there as well.
For ten years I have been carefully training the tree to grow away from the overhead power lines. One branch at a time. Ten years ago some asshole on instruction from the power company came swinging a chainsaw and devastated the tree. It took all of that ten years for it to grow back. For me the tree was a comfort, a monument of strength and durability. Some mornings it lent me a little strength to keep going inspite of the adversity in my life.
Even my cats know to stay out of the tree it is a safe haven for my feathered friends.
A couple of days ago I came home late at night, went straight to bed. In the morning I heard no birds,
My eyes slowly came into focus, there was no tree to be seen in the window. I was horrified, I ran outside not even stopping for pants or shoes.
My now only ten feet high the poplar lay in pieces brutalized by some overzealous contractor, decapitated, severed limbs laying everywhere, looking like a scene from an episode of tree CSI. I was angry. A large two hundred pound chunk of tree trunk was hanging suspended five feet above the ground waiting to drop and kill one the cats, or crush my little Beagle. All the baby trees that were growing underneath ready for transplant to other locations on the property were broken and crushed.
What a fucking nightmare. When the power company rep came out in the winter I signed a note giving them permission to come onto my property. I told them clearly that I did not want the tree brutalized just trimmed. I got a promise then it wouldn’t happen.
Then again in the spring the contractor showed up in my driveway and I made it clear again the instructions for the tree. Then for the third time later in the year the contractors were cleaning some small trees at the edge of the main lines which run through my property. This time giving them instructions to leave the tree alone. I had the power disconnected at that time. There was no need to trim the tree. I had gone off grid. I no intention of ever connecting to the power company again.
The next morning I heard chainsaws in the yard again, this time they were cutting down the willows that were protecting my the area around my fire pit.
A path had been cut through the willows to clear the way for a set of wires that had no electricity. The sheltered area no longer sheltered.
I stopped the two chainsaw wielding contractors from doing any more damage. I talked to them for a few minutes. They didn’t understand why they were given the instructions to cut the trees they knew that their was no power here, They were told by someone to do the job anyways.
I called Atco power, a representative was already on her way.
The rep happened to be the woman who got me to sign the permission slip in the first place. She remembered my original instructions.
Was this retribution from the power company for daring to go off grid? I hope not, I hope this was just a stupid mistake and a lack of communication.
Either way it will take ten years for that tree to grow back to where it was. If it survives.
The tree survived and is doing weĺl. If possible I will too.
I just heard something on a TV series that cut me to the quick. It was on the series Ted Lasso which I enjoy so far.
The thing that was said. Was something like:
It’s one thing to be sad. It’s another to be sad and alone.
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