When we bought our house six year ago, it was really the trees that we bought. We had chosen an urban neighborhood with close set homes, and the trees were a buffer from our neighbors that made the property livable. We could have bought a larger, more updated or more attractive home, but we chose the small, unassuming WWI bungalow i part because of the trees.

Of the trees, the real prize was the mystery tree in the backyard. Green leaves in Spring, purple ones by early Summer, and fragrant delicate flowers that bloomed for just one week in late April. It shaded the whole backyard, and kept our house livable during the cruelly humid, hot Ohio Summers. Anyone who has watched more than an afternoon of HGTV would have known the tree was too much--too big for the tiny yard, too close to the house, too much shade for grass to grow well, and a couple of limbs that hungrily reach out to damage the roofs of our garage and home. But we loved it anyway, and, though we never thought much about it, it was one of the things that made an inadequate house into a terrific home.

Coming back from the science museum with Gabe, I could see the tree-trimmer's truck half a block away, and it was loaded with far too many branches. They were supposed to have removed one large limb that was scrapping the roof off of the garage and we had used the guy before, so we trusted him, and left to to take Gabe to his third trip to see the construction machine exhibit downtown. The pickup truck was mounded high with branches, limbs and leaves. Even from the end of the drive, out of sight of the tree, I could tell from the amount of sunlight pouring onto the garage and driveway that far, far too much of the tree had been removed. Rounding the house, it was worse that I had pictured. The tree had been limbed up above the first story of house, and it now looked more like a two-story, purple Q-tip than the chaotically leafy, friendly tree that defined my house. As soon as Lisa saw it, she ran into the house, sobbing.

We lost the limb that Gabe's swing and a bird feeder hung from; I won't be able to watch the robins and sparrows hop from branch to branch while I eat in the breakfast nook; next year we won't be able to smell, or even see the small blossoms; the hostas--which we liked--and the ferns--which we never did--will burnout and die over the coming weeks; gabe willhave to have sunscreen just to play in his sandbox. Every few minutes we think of a new loss (I just now noticed that the stained glass window in dinning room--ironically, a series of stylized trees--instead of being backed by green and purple, the view from my desk is now roof of the garage and the side of a house).

Honestly, at this point, we are thinking of moving.
3:13:18 PM  #