Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Lorax Lament

We live near a small neighborhood park with beautiful old trees and we have some very old trees on our lot as well. It really makes a difference in our lives. I know it might sound silly, but just looking at the trees makes me feel good. During my labor with Josie, I would look out our bedroom window at the trees in the park and get this inner peace.

Earlier this year, a few of the older trees in the park were cut down by the park service because they were seen as a threat of falling onto the play ground equipment. The boys and I watched as they cut down these trees and then tried to count the rings. It was sad even when they planted new trees to replace those trees which were older than my father and possibly my grandfather. The boys were excited to see the way they dealt with the trees, but also perplexed since they know chopping down trees is not good in most cases. Yes, they grew up having the Lorax read to them and they can recite much of it by heart.

Well, yesterday we also lost the tree in our front yard. We called the city about the tree because Rob noticed it was sick. The city tree guy (technical name) decided the tree was sick enough to remove and since it was on "city property", they came and chopped it down. I know it was probably for the best, but it doesn't make it easier. To make matters worse, this tree gave us quite a bit of shade in the summer and the city decided it didn't need to be replaced. I feel like our house is naked now. We are going to look into the rules and see if we can replace it ourselves. We plan on re-landscaping our entire property with mostly native plant next spring.

The top picture is Dema in the park near our house. The other three are of our tree coming down. Can you believe the amount of wood chips they made from just our one tree. They took it to the park to put on the playground. Now we just have a stump for the Lorax to wag his finger at us from.

We will have to plant some trees next spring. I love the thought of planting a tree which will be here long after I'm gone. Such is the cycle of life.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would that tree be great for Josie's placenta?

Vegan Linda said...

Excellent idea.

Anonymous said...

I can certainly sympathize with the loss of a tree. :(

At least you'll get to pick out your new tree. It would be cool if you could plant a fruit tree!

Vegan Linda said...

We would love a tree that we could eat from! That is the bright side.