The first candle I burned this morning was called “cedar balsam.” The next, “tree farm.” But I need only step outside into the frigid morning air to smell real wood. As I walk, I see Oregon juncos picking amongst the sawdust looking for birdseed. I survey the wood shavings and a freshly made stump close to the fence line; the only proof that a mighty ponderosa was there as recently as yesterday. Tree farm, indeed. No candle required.
It started two months ago, when I called an arborist to come consult on what to do with the wayward lilac trees that are taking over a corner of the yard, roots threatening to topple a small stone wall. I’m still trying to control nature in some sense even though I know better. But I was down with a cold the day of our appointment, and so my husband worked with the arborist. They forgot all about the lilacs and the crab apple I hoped to have trimmed and instead focused on a precariously leaning ponderosa. The one outside my home office window where I spent many hours watching birds and squirrels eat at a corn cob feeder hanging from the tree. I wrote about the tree and washing my windows with my father a few years ago for one of my Letters from Home columns.
Although the arborist didn’t say it in so many words, my husband gauged his level of concern every time he walked back to the leaning ponderosa and said, “I’d be worried about this one…” When I finally managed to walk outside a few days later, I observed how much the tree leaned over the bedroom of our next-door neighbors. And since we actually do love our neighbors, it became a no-brainer to have the tree removed.
“Removed” is such a genteel word for what happened next. I came home one afternoon to three huge utility-like trucks parked around our house. When I looked up, a solitary figure perched in the crown of the ponderosa tree wielding a chainsaw. Each branch removed followed yells between men on the ground and the arborist in the tree. A series of ropes guided each piece safely to the ground before being carried either to a woodchipper or a large cart, perhaps for firewood. I never asked. Instead, I walked around the house listening to the shouts and exclamations of the arborists as they made their way from the crown to the trunk of the tree. It was simultaneously thrilling and disheartening.
I left for an errand and came home later to see the arborists removing several large dead branches, often called “widow makers,” from other trees around the yard. My husband cheerfully reported he now has a view of the southern sky for his telescope. I looked up at the nakedness and wondered what birds and squirrels we’ll be missing now from the branchless sky. Perhaps I should learn to better embrace the cosmos of stars overhead rather than the constellations of birds.
The squirrels outside my window are confused. Gone is their tree and, with nowhere to climb, they are missing out on their corn cobs I used to place in a holder attached to the tree. Now they scurry on the ground, which is covered with snow, unable to find their food. This is not sitting well with either of us.
My father has followed the story with interest and questions. He shared that he had some trees taken down at his house, but they weren’t as large as the ponderosa. My father surprised me when he asks what I’ll look at outside of my window now. I bemoan the lack of birds and squirrels. He laughs, which I always take as laughing at me and not with me and asks if I always tell the finches how pretty their feathers are. Of course I do. In my mind.
It seems a small thing now, this missing of nature, as my father deals with a brain tumor diagnosis. He’s opted for palliative care and I’m back home trying to catalog every story he has to tell me. I look out the window during our recent phone call and think back on the day he went to the store with me to help me pick out window cleaner. Then he helped me take the screens out of the windows so I could have a clearer view of the birds while showing me his method of window washing. This was a moment of trying to be connected, of expressing pride and love, but I didn’t recognize these actions for what they were at the time.
When my father dies, sooner rather than later, I imagine I’ll be like the squirrels. Missing my tree, not quite sure how to find all of the kernels buried under the snow.
It’s warm today, so I’m hoping to have the energy to take the screens out and wash the windows. Maybe I’ll hang some suet feeders and corn cobs off the chain link fence in some approximation of the former ponderosa buffet. I had gathered a piece of beautiful, striated bark, covered it with a waterproof sealant, still trying to control and preserve nature in my own way. My father would laugh, not at me, I realize, but at this notion of me painting a piece of bark, considering our old house had pine bark landscaping. I’ll have to make sure I tell him.
