Time Through Vegetation

 

2014

When I took this picture, I was focused more on the new concrete driveway than I was the vegetation on the left side but it is the first picture I can find that shows what I am going to write about. We had purchased this house three years prior and removed a giant large dead oak tree near the corner of the garage where the pad jogs to the left. We also did three other large dead trees on the far side of the house at the same time. All would have smashed our house to pieces had they fallen the wrong way. 

Seven more years would go by and then on a warm spring day in 2021, while standing in the garage with my two girls, waiting for the school bus to come, the entire top half of the tree on the very left of the photo broke off and fell into our driveway completely blocking it. I have seen plenty of trees succumb to gravity due to chainsaw cuts, but this is the first spontaneous break in half of a tree I have ever seen. Fortunately, none of us were hurt and the kids on the bus sure gazed at the mess with wide eyes when they arrived a few minutes after it broke. I no longer remember what kind of tree it was but I don't remember it being spectacularly pretty so I wasn't too sorry to see it go.

Flash forward to the big snow storm we had a few weeks ago that dumped 27 inches of snow in three days on us. It was too much for the second tree from the left and the next one along the driveway towards the garage, a mulberry I think, and about a third of it broke off and fell next to the bump out pad on the left side of the garage where my daughter parks her car. Fortunately, it just missed the car and I cleared what I could from the cleaned driveway and called it good for the time being.

Now, several weeks later, the snow has largely melted except for piles here and there and I thought I would get a jump start on spring on one warm February day. I fired up my chainsaw and took care of another large limb that fell on the city road that runs by the front of our house. I never saw it initially but a large snow plow during the storm pushed it to the side of the road so it was passable in one lane and buried it in many feet of snow. A week of -20 F temperatures that followed froze it in place solidly. But now free of snow, I cut it up and disposed of it so my neighbors and I can use both lanes again. 

I then set my sights on the Mulberry tree that nearly squashed my daughter's car and made a few half hearted cuts at the limb before stopping. There was still snow on the bank that is was growing from, the same bank that I fell on and broke three ribs back in 2021, and there was a lot of weight still being suspended 10 feet in the air by the branches poking into the ground. I also looked up at the tree and saw that it was looking rather poor and has been for a number of years. The trunk was split and starting to rot. It was time to come down and so I hired my tree guy and the following day, it was all gone to what you see below.

Now that it is gone, I'm thinking of the possibilities of what to do with that slope. Part of me wants to build a large retaining wall out of huge rocks to make it a nicer place to walk above and below. But I know that would cost a lot of money and I would need to hire it out. My next option would be to use that space to plant something. A row of small trees that are ornamental or fruit bearing perhaps. A hedge? Extend my two lilac bushes at the very end of the driveway and great a long row? I'm not sure yet and in no hurry to decide. We still have a fair amount of winter left to go despite what the groundhog said this morning (Feb 2) as I write this.

2024