If only keeping a clear mind were as easy as heeding the warnings on a piece of heavy machinery! Today’s Photo Friday theme is Heavy, so I’m revisiting some photos of cherry-pickers and wood-chippers–heavy machinery–I’d photographed at the Dillant-Hopkins Airport in Swanzey, NH back in May, 2007.
In the aftermath of last weekend’s stormy weather, tree and landscape crews have been out in force throughout Newton, cutting broken limbs and fallen trunks. Dismantling windblown trees is hard work, and the sound of chainsaws and wood-chippers has been a prominent part of this week’s ambient soundtrack: an auditory reminder of the heavy-handed influence of heavy weather.
Even in the absence of heavy machinery, storm clean-up has been ongoing: this morning I saw a librarian outside the Waban Library Center doing her part to clean up tree debris, dragging small branches into a pile by a city waste basket. Dressed like a quintessential librarian, she was wearing a long skirt and sensible shoes, and she was carrying a small stack of children’s books in one arm. Even if you aren’t dressed for heavy lifting, there are always small things that need tidying.
Walking down an accustomed road on our usual dog-walk this morning, Reggie and I had to turn around, the road blocked with those aforementioned wood-chippers and tree-crews. The particular house where they were working, though, didn’t have any storm damage that I could remember, and the tree they were chainsawing into logs looked healthy. This particular house recently changed hands, and I’ve been worried that the new owners would make radical changes to its landscaping: their neighbors had cut down a couple of tall pines last autumn, and this particular house is surrounded by a woodsy fringe of unkempt undergrowth where I regularly see the year’s first snowdrops and crocuses along with wildflowers such as trillium and jack-in-the-pulpit.
The woodsy fringe around this house, in other words, is a small spot of almost-wildness in an otherwise immaculate suburb: a small strip of real estate I’d prefer be left untidy. It’s a curious habit I’ve observed in neighbors nearly everywhere I’ve ever lived, though: you buy a charming house that caught your eye because it was shaded by trees, then you move in and cut them all down. It happened with my old house in Hillsboro, NH, which used to be screened from the street by a half-acre of pines–the last time I drove by, I saw a half-acre of stumps–and it seems to be happening here and there in Newton. It’s enough to make your heart feel heavy.
This is my contribution to today’s Photo Friday theme, Heavy.
Jun 12, 2010 at 9:04 am
Pretty realization, really representative of heavy, beautiful day with you.
Jun 12, 2010 at 9:10 am
Maybe people are cutting back trees that they’re afraid will come down in the next wind storm? Or maybe, as you say, they’re just those annoying types who prefer manicured landscaping. I briefly dated a guy who’d had his house built on a lovely mountainside with beautiful view made possible by cutting down a wide swath of trees – but he told me how he was going to cut even more on either side to widen the already broad view – why??
But seriously – you have a whole blog category for “wood-chippers”?!
Jun 12, 2010 at 11:59 am
I counted stumps on this morning’s dog-walk: they cleared more than a half-dozen trees, most if not all of them pines. It makes me wonder whether the trees had been infected with some sort of tree disease or parasite, since the house next door to this one had cleared a few pine trees last year.
Or maybe there’s a thriving market for chipped pine???
“Wood-chippers” is one of the tags I assigned this post; it’s different from a blog-category. WordPress has both tags & categories: you create categories for things you blog about often (for example, “Food”), then you assign tags based on specific things you mention in a particular post (e.g. “enchiladas”).
Categories allow readers to sample posts on a particular topic, using the category list on the blog’s sidebar. Tags, on the other hand, allow readers to surf across blogs by clicking a tag on a particular topic. (“Hmmm, I wonder what other blogs are saying about enchiladas today?”)
Jun 12, 2010 at 12:04 pm
I noticed that phenomenon of tree-cutting in my neighborhood too. Of course, like Leslee already noted, some people cut the trees down to prevent them from falling in a storm. I think here in California, it may well be that insurance companies end up having a say in the landscaping processes of new homeowners too.