Out Standing in His Field

Sorry...yet another picture of Spike's Walk, but we went the opposite way round today and got a somewhat different view. It is a happy place for all three of us, but after a broken night's sleep I was thinking more about taking a nap than enjoying the view. The meadow is half way up the little peak in the background and the track we take circumnavigates it. We can see it from our kitchen window. 

Many garden plans and my nap had to be postponed due to the tree cutting in Janet and Paul's lot next door. Janet did call to warn us that the tree cutters would be coming. We share a gate off our driveway and she said they would need to use it to get to the huge burnt eucalyptus trees on their property. I'm not quite sure why the tree fellers parked a car in front of out house , why the alarm in it went off, or why they had such a hard time figuring out how to turn it off, but it certainly got my attention.

They used the quick and dirty method for bringing down two very tall eucalyptus trees...cutting each of them at the base and felling them with a godawful crash. They did spend some time tying ropes and belaying them from a tree just on the other side of our fence. I presume this allowed them to land the trees in a safe spot but it looked scary. There was one casualty...a squirrel that had been in the tree. They've been cutting up the tree and feeding the branches into a chipper all afternoon, creating an enormous dust storm drifting on the afternoon wind across our garden and driving us indoors. I hope they gave the squirrel a decent burial, but I somehow kind of doubt it.

There will be a big pile of wood chips augmenting the enormous pile of dirt that is already there.  Eucalyptus trees are an enormous fire hazard, but since these were already burned and dead, I wonder if creating a mound of kiln dried wood chips isn't a worse fire hazard. There are still two trees left that may or may not recover.

The same could possibly be said of me....