June
23, 2022
I
had been asleep for a short while when a text alert on Mike’s phone awakened me. My heart lurched. Danged anxiety can be set off by the smallest
of things. I thought about getting up, but
the curtain was pulled back from the window so that the night air could blow
through the room, and the sound of the creek was so pleasant that I didn’t want
to move. Instead, I lay and watched lightning
bugs as well as actual lightning as it flashed over the tree tops above
the nearest ridge. The bugs and nature’s electricity flashed and glowed simultaneously
in what seemed like my own personal display set against the darkness of the
night. I made a mental note that someone in Floyd County
was most likely getting rain, and I wondered if it would reach us as well. Mike eventually came to the bedroom and a few
minutes later, without warning, a rushing sound filled our ears. I thought it was rain and I jumped from the
bed to shut all the windows. Mike helped me by closing the windows downstairs,
as I ran upstairs. He yelled up to me
that it wasn’t raining, but a sudden windstorm that we were experiencing. It didn’t last more than five minutes, just
long enough for us to get all the windows shut and take ourselves back to
bed. We thought nothing more of it.
This
morning, walking to the barn, I noticed that a large Maple tree was on the
ground and realized that the micro storm must have brought it down. “How odd,” I thought. “All of the major storms we have had, and
this one, brief gust of wind is what took the old tree down.” We were not surprised that the tree fell, we
were just surprised that it took this long for it to succumb to the storms. (I
did briefly think about how we are often like that tree in that we stand up to
the strongest of storms only to become weary and let something that seems
almost trivial be the cause of great distress.) Mike had said when we fenced out the springs
and put the cross fencing up that he probably should have taken that tree
down. I’m always glad when he doesn’t
get around to cutting trees or when I can convince him to let them remain. I cry a little when a tree is cut down. I loved this old Maple because it had a huge
hole in the trunk that looked like a door to another world. It was easy to imagine elfin creatures
crawling out of the cavity of the old tree and slipping into the deeper forest
to do whatever elfin creatures do. Even
if the tree isn’t part of a magical kingdom, its size and age make it
historic. Mike and I have an ongoing
argument about trees. I claim every tree
has history and should not be removed. Frustrated,
he sometimes leaves them standing but continues to complain and throw out the
occasional sarcastic comment about “your historic trees”. He reminds me that those trees
are going to come down someday and cause great damage. (He's the practical one and I am the dreamer.) This morning when I saw the tree down, I was
the first one to climb the hill and assess the damage. I was relieved it was minimal. Somehow, this very large tree had fallen
around the fence and was being held up by some of its branches, keeping it from
smashing the fence into the ground. It
was a large tree with numerous leaves. Clean-up would take time. Since I had set
aside the day for writing and had nothing else pressing, I thought I would offer
to help. Mike seemed to enjoy my company as we worked together dragging brush
and moving the smaller limbs that we will cut up into firewood later. The skid loader with the grapple hook made
cleaning up the brush a breeze. It was
fun to watch how Mike grabbed up the smaller brush in the metal hooks and
carried it away. In only a few hours, we
had the worst of the mess cleaned up. Mike
did tease me about one of my historic trees falling to the ground, but having
someone to help with cleanup seemed to lessen his bitterness about the work
involved. I guess it’s only fair that if
I insist on leaving the trees, I probably need to help clean them up when
Nature brings them down. Mike probably
would have laughed at me had he known that while he was cutting the limbs from
the trunk of that tree as it bowed in defeat under his chainsaw, I was
praying. I am not an animist or
pantheist, but I do believe in a Creator who cares about every living
thing. I also believe that pausing to be
thankful for the things provided to us through creation can be a deeply
spiritual experience. And so, as Mike’s
chainsaw began to take the limbs from the trunk of that broken down Maple, I
thought about all the gifts the Creator had provided through this one
tree: shade for my cattle and the deer, shelter
for birds and smaller animals, shade for Buddy and I as we walked the trail
beside the tree, beauty as the leaves would change from green to red in the
fall, and the warmth for our home this winter from the wood cut from this tree. What is left of that old tree will eventually
decompose and nourish the earth. It is a
gift that will continue. Somehow, being
thankful felt right to me for what the tree has provided over many years.
Once
the branches had been cleaned from the tree, Mike was faced with trying to cut
the tree from the fence without causing greater damage. As it was, if the tree shifted while being
sawed, then it would most likely wipe out a large portion of the fence and
perhaps even smash or split some of the fence posts. Of course, he did not want to have to do
major repairs if it wasn’t necessary. We
talked about all the possibilities of what could happen, which way the tree
would probably roll when it shifted, and whether it would be possible to use
the loader to hold up the tree and somehow cut it back so that it fell on the
other side of the fence. The only way to
do that was for Mike to be on the other side of the fence while cutting, and
that was not safe at all. Mike got in
the loader and began to try to maneuver the tree. I held my breath. On the steep bank, I knew that if he made the
wrong move, he could tip the loader.
I shouldn’t watch at times like this, but I can’t help
myself. At one point the loader did come
off the ground in the back. I screamed,
but Mike couldn’t hear me over the noise of the machine. He is skilled with the loader and while he
frightens me, he knows how to react in these situations. He countered the reaction of the machine, and
it went right back down on the ground. I
watched as he lifted the huge tree from the ground on our side of the fence and
began to work it back and to the left.
If it broke, the fence would come down as the tree smashed to the
ground. But the tree held together until
he was able to get it safely over the fence and drop it on the backside where
he can cut it up later. With the pasture
area now cleared of the fallen tree, we began the minor repairs on the
fence. The high tensile wire is made for
this purpose and bounces back readily once it has been tightened. We were able to get the fence wire back in
place where it had been peeled down by the tree. Mike stapled it in place and then tightened
the single strand of barbed wire along the top as well. The fence while not quite as pretty, is fully
functional. The whole situation could
have been so much worse, and we are thankful that it wasn’t. The day turned out to be a good day despite
the extra work because we looked at it in a positive manner and made the most
of our time together. If only we can
remember and choose to do so every day.
.JPG)
