Vikings Visit the Back Yard

For the first time since we've lived here, the power company sent a group of single-minded tree-trimmers through the neighborhood to clear the power lines in advance of hurricane season. The neighbors are angry (but I'm not) because these guys are not artists; these tree cutters came through with little regard for symmetry, let alone sympathy for the trees. They were like drunken Viking invaders, conquering one cherry laurel after another, burning a wide swath.

In particular we have a number of tree along our back fence, which runs almost directly underneath the lines. We even have a big, ugly pole in our back yard, something that is now difficult to ignore.

The Vikings did this while we were away on vacation last week, but I don't care because they helped prepare for my next mega-project: to build a new fence and then a pagoda out back. I was planning to cut many of these tree anyway.

What they lacked in artistic sensibility was matched by a disregard for common sense, because several of the tree in our back yard grow at an angle.

These poor trees live on the edge, struggling for the sun, staring always at the ground and wondering when gravity will finally defeat them, holding on to life only because of the limbs that grow and offer some counter weight in the opposite direction.

One of these poor souls couldn't take it any more, couldn't take the indignity of being stripped bare, couldn't adjust to its missing limb, and so, a few days later, it pulled its roots from the sandy ground and took a nose-dive into the neighbor's yard, taking out a section of fence in the process. The Vikings are responsible, but they are long gone.

Here I am in the neighbor's yard, cutting up the remains. One down, about 12 to go, and now I'll be the bad guy.