I think that I shall not see...

...a site as lovely as our holly trees being ground up into pulp.

Cookie is a tree lover and today is a happy/sad day. 

We are sad because having six trees removed from the property, leaving two.  And then adding four.

We are happy because two of the trees are these scraggly holly trees that have failed to thrive under the manse's previous residents, and after our efforts to feed them and care for them.  But Cookie has a rule - no plants that sting or harm you.  So Eloise and Abelard must go and are being ground up as I type.

We are sad because one of the trees, a pin oak topping out at 90 feet is coming down because of decline, and because it was planted too close to the house and the neighbor's house.  In the last windstorm, I thought it was headed for us as the wind blew from the west and towards them as the storm hooked out to sea and blew from the east.  We are really going to miss that tree.

We are happy because two dying/dead ash trees are going.  The Emerald Ash Borer is slowly munching its way through Maryland and killing every ash tree in the nation as it hops from place to place.  In Ohio, the loss of ash trees has been devastating.  We are talking about one of the greatest plagues to every hit the U.S.  Think Dutch Elm was bad? The larva of the Ash Borer is the Satan of insects.  Their eggs are laid by the mature insect who drills a "D" shaped hole into the bark  When the larva emerges, they chew serpentine tunnels through the layer of the tree that delivers nutrition to the branches.  the trees starve to death.  So, while we hate to lose them, they are infested and the vermin will be burnt to a crisp. One less Ash for them to propagate in.

And we are sad, because the box elder that we thought we had scheduled to be removed is a sugar maple, with another ash tree growing between the two stalks of the sugar maple.  So all three have to go.  That sucks.  And it's an extra $400.

And all of that is on top of the $,$$$ that we are already paying because of the pin oak.  Its so close to the houses that they can't bring the

In the end, though, we are happy.  We have four very large birch trees being held and they will get planted a week from today. They are better suited to our swampy backyards, their branches and leaves will give movement in the breeze, and they provide good hiding spaces for the birds. 

So next week, Cookie will get his Helen Lawson on and plant some trees, not any trees, but my trees.