Brief thoughts from the day...

The southern elm is gone. Just a flat wooden platform of a stump.

Sixty-three years old, I counted.

Sixty-three years.

Gone in four to five hours.

The trunk bled. Profusely. Water was actually pouring off of it. The tree killers seemed surprised. One made a ball of damp sawdust to throw at another. Apparently nobody else waters their trees, so they're just dry wood when they're lopped off.

We water.

The tree grew faster in the past 11 years than in any other period of its life. Took a while until I figured it out.

That's when they tore up the other street, for new water and sewer lines. I assume the roots suddenly had new ground to grow in, and new sources of rich soil.

We'd both immediately realized what loss of that tree would do to shade on our yard. That southeast quarter will now be just as hard, dry and thirsty as the treeless southwest corner. The arborist seemed genuinely surprised we were aware of the benefits of having a shade tree.

Apparently nobody else in town has complained. And they're taking out a tremendous numbers of trees. Most folks just think the trees suck water out of their lawn, and are happy to see them gone at the town's expense.

But neither of us anticipated the nighttime effect of losing that tree. Our normally dark front yard is now ablaze with light from the corner street light.

Bummer.

Told the wife I want to see a lawyer. Yes, the town has the right to remove their liability risks, but I suspect they're also bound to provide adequate financial compensation.

Have heard mature trees add $1000-2000 to the value of residential property.

She says no. Says no good can come of it.

We have to live with these people, you see...

Eldest son came home with the corgi (and new kitten) a little after midnight last night. Corgi woke half the town by charging out of their car and barking where someone stole our tree!

Wife and I signed our names over twenty times each yesterday.

A good thing, hopefully.

We have tried telling the heelers that the kitten is a "KC", rather than a "cat", but neither is fooled.

Actually got to eat some homegrown chokecherries yesterday and today. Most are still red, but cherries on a few bushes are black. And birds have cleared off one tree completely, at least anything above waist high.

With the south elm gone, squirrels are going to have a real hard, dangerous time getting to our apple tree now.

One of the data projects I've been pounding away at suddenly got done this afternoon. Only two weeks late, but there are two of the seven of us who still aren't done, so I'm not last this year.

A good thing.

Deadline for other annual reports is rapidly approaching, which I haven't even started, but we're halfway through August and I haven't started antelope classifications yet, either.

So tomorrow, I've decided to be in the field.

Those reports may very well end up late, too.