Falling trees

Trees are falling all over my neighborhood this week. The dead trees that have dotted the landscape these last several weeks are coming down one by one as the tree removal people do their work.

Most of the trees that are falling are the huge pines that grew in this area long before the subdivisions intruded. As the houses were built, many - most - of the yards retained one or more of the native pines. For whatever reason, it seems that those trees were hit hardest - at least in our neighborhood - by the drought. I don't know how many hundreds or thousands of gallons of water a day that it takes to sustain life in one of these gigantic trees, but when we went months with little or no rain, it was too much for them. Even their long taproots probing the earth could not find enough water to keep them alive. And now, slowly and carefully, their brown carcasses are being removed,

Much care is needed and I certainly don't envy the workers their task. One of the dead trees will serve to illustrate the problem. It is just on the other side of our back fence in our neighbor's yard. The tree is well over a hundred feet tall. If it falls to the east, it will take out our fence and our garden shed, not to mention damaging our veggie garden and perhaps a tree in our yard. If it falls to the north, it would take out the neighbor's tool shed and/or house. There are other big trees to the south and west of it, so it will be a very tricky maneuver to remove it.

I must say though that these guys seem to know what they are doing and they have some serious equipment to help them do the job. Maybe our falling trees are in good hands.