To Tree or not to Tree?

Trees are truly one of nature’s works of art. They spring up from the earth to give us shade in the warm weather, provide a habitat for birds and animals and cleanse our air by taking in the carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. Joyce Kilmer wrote a poem that summed it up a bit more poignantly I believe.

That being the case we have a tree on our front lawn that does all of that. It’s quite tall, at least 40 feet high, a very nice Maple tree. Yet let’s say it has “issues.”

Last year it lost a major branch in a storm which dented the roof to my sons’ 89 Jeep. (No one was hurt except the old Jeep’s pride!) When my husband attempted to trim the remaining stump he was bombarded by hundreds of big black ants apparently having a party inside the trunk! That was the turning point for my husband.

“That tree had got to come down!” he declared. ”Why!? What has it ever done to you?” “I retorted. “It’s full of ants and the next big storm comes along its going to fall on the house!” he said. Well I pleaded and begged to spare it and seem to have won the tree a reprieve, temporarily.

This spring the issue of the tree was brought up again. Our neighbors mentioned to my husband “If it was their house they would take it down.” Yes it has ants once again and it’s pretty old and yes it leans toward the house. So at my husband’s insistence I ended up calling our local Department of Public Works to see if they could come out and assess our tree. A couple of weeks later, two men from the DPW pulled up in front of our house. As they came up our walkway, they glanced up at our tree then rang the doorbell. “Did you call to take this tree down?” asked the one man.

“Well yes, but I really would like you to look it over first and let me know what you think before we take out the axe!” I said anxiously.

The other man looked up at the tree and said “If it was my house lady, I would cut it down.”

"But do you think it looks infested by insects at all? We saw black ants climbing on it the other day.”

The other DPW man spoke out and said “If you see ants on the outside there are ants on the inside. We will put you on the list for tree removal.”

They got into their car and drove off. Just like that I felt I had sentenced my lovely Maple to death row! I thought maybe there would have been a more extensive inspection of the trees condition than that!

A couple of days later I was talking to my next door neighbor Al, and told him of the trees imminent demise. “So they put you on the list huh?” remarked Al. In a defeated tone I replied, “Yes and I am not sure when they will come to do this, a couple of weeks I suppose?” “Frank across the street has been on that list for three years. He is still waiting for them to cut down the tree in his front yard!” said Al. I walked away thinking I got another reprieve for my tree!

I know logically that we are better off having the tree removed, and I know that they will plant a new smaller tree in its place. But after 50 years or so of being a dedicated tree maybe it deserves a couple more summers to share its shade with us. Oops…. that reminds me, I better go and check out our homeowners’ policy while I am thinking of it!