"If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down?...

We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason."- Jack Handey


Well, we know that our lawn and the needles from our massive pine tree have been having silent screaming matches for around three decades and so, with a bit of sadness, we have decided to have the largest tree in our backyard removed.
It's a beast of a tree, it's true, but we have a desire to get a vegetable garden planted and there's this thing called sunlight that tomatoes need...

We're not going to miss these:

We learned from one of the tree guys that pine needles have a lot of acid in them and that is the main reason they are hard on lawns and gardens, not because they shade the lawn so strongly.



I do feel a bit sad because it is so huge. I cannot wrap my arms around it. It's bark is gnarled and ancient and beautiful. Our street was a Parade of Homes street back in the day and it is wildly over-planted with trees (ask any of our neighbors), so that makes it a little better, but if these trees were all planted when these homes were built and shown off then this tree and I are exactly the same age.

Have I made this kind of growth in the last 33 years? I'm waxing philisophical here, but it's still an amazing tree.

This guy has to go because he's growing too close to this wall. We don't want to have to pay for the wall's repair.

He is also getting crowded out by the sycamore to the left of it and the neighbor's pine to the right.

We have debated back and forth about getting this one removed as well, but have decided it just needs to be thinned out and dead branches removed.

I am really hoping that the thinning will remove

<== this clump of built up pine needles.

Anyway, today is the day! We're excited!