A Cherry Tree
John got off to the airport Wednesday evening. Because of a tyre problem, my journey home through Toronto area rush hour took me 4 hours.... Anyway, I woke the next morning to a magnificent day - although when I rose (at 4:45 a.m. !) it was still dark and moonlit.
I blame this story in part on a certain Mr. Smallwood of Haslemere, Surrey, England. It was he who, long ago, introduced me to the pruning of trees. John and I both had agreed that this tree had to come down. John wanted it professionally done, despite my vigorous protestations.Yesterday, I dressed for an autumn day - but it fast became a belated summer at 24C. A perfect day for garden work, and then I saw that cherry tree... only thirty, well maybe closer t forty, feet tall and about 1 1/2 feet in diameter at the bottom. I can do it I said to myself - and do it I did although it nearly "done me in"!
I realized the tree, which was split into three tall trunks about 15 feet up from the ground was of a questionable lean... Although it should be leaning, because of prevailing winds, away from the house, there was some doubt in my mind. So, I went in search of the tall stepladder, and with a trusty handsaw proceeded to cut away smaller branches overhanging the garden and drive... These were only about 3-4 inches in diameter.
Then I paused, looked up at the towering trio of trunks. Higher up they would be only about 8-10 inches in diameter. A chainsaw would be best - but hard to handle up a ladder and so high and with one hand, whilst the other would hold perilously onto anything that would sustain me.
So off I went to collect the tall extension ladder and propped it up high against the upper limbs. Mounting heavenward with my light and safer hand saw I climbed... and sawed... and sawed, with right hand, then left hand and even, with arm wrapped around one truck, with both hands.
Down they came, one by one crashing to the lawn below. What a mess of broken limbs and branches. And there stood the mighty pillar, branching out into three lopped-off heads - now only fifteen or sixteen feet in height.
By now I ached, had cramps, and was sweating like the proverbial pig. But I felt already like George Washington, that premier president from the land below. He could not tell a lie. (Well that likeness may go by the wayside when John returns - "What me? Alone? - Not I.") And he chopped down a cherry tree. And it got him the presidency of that renegade land. I know his tree was not the large wild cherry I had just hacked asunder.
But the pillar could not remain. So out came the chainsaw - the instrument that brings terror to John's mind - at least when I am handling it with abandon. It needed cleaning. It needed sharpening. So these were my first tasks. Then the pull and roar of the engine - music to my soul.
The saw attacked the tree with an eager vengeance - at first, but the deeper it got the more it struggled. I had to take it in steps aiming the fall away from the house, away from a stone wall and away from other trees and shrubs. When I was almost through, the tree started to lean - the wrong way, towards the house and some electrical wires.
Fortunately I had done my exercises that morning and with chainsaw screaming in one hand I pushed with the other, and pushed ... The tree co-operated. It fell with a thud onto the lawn where I had wanted it to go.
Next came the job of moving the debris - the many branches and their off-spring... and of chopping the trunk and larger limbs in to fireplace size logs.
I could only have wished I were done... but now comes the task of moving the logs, many of them, into the woodshed. That is this morning’s task. I could not face it yesterday.
And now also comes the task of hitching the trailer, loading it with the branches, and driving it to the lower field, unloading it and readying the pile to be burned on another day.
All in the day of a lonely country guy whose partner is walking the beaches of a far away tropical island. It's his fault!
