If you live long enough in one home, you eventually outlast the trees you planted. I’ve written before how barren of trees our property was when we first moved into the neighborhood. We could look out our back window into the farm field across the two-lane state route 41. We spent the first few years hauling small saplings in the trunk of my father-in-law’s LTD out to the house. Our property has a healthy four inches of topsoil covering (at least) two feet of clay (I’ve never been able to dig a hole deep enough to judge the depth of the clay). Digging holes for each of those trees was not something I enjoyed.
But now those trees are dying off. In the spring, the Corkscrew Willow came crashing down across our backyard. The Ash trees we purchased as a set twenty years ago were our most recent departures. Both trees have spent the past two years slowly eaten away by the Emerald Ash Borer. It was obvious they were struggling. Entire limbs were suddenly devoid of leaves, and in the fall the leaves fell earlier than they had in any previous year. This year, in a desperate attempt to stay alive, each tree had started sending out new shoots from the base of the tree.
We’ve been talking about having the tree removed almost a year now (we are at times a little deliberate in our decision-making). We had a few companies in mind and planned on having a few out to give us quotes. The plan was to be deliberate and get quotes from a variety of contractors and select the one with whom we were most comfortable. So like many of our projects, the opposite happened. The very first contractor showed up, gave us a great quote and said he’d have the trees out that same day. Like any spontaneous couple (that’s sarcasm folks), we accepted his offer.
Continue reading “The Ashes Follow the Willow”