Marley's Tree

Calhoun's Can(n)ons for December 4, 2009

The huge tree was dead. Dead as a doornail. Let there be no doubt whatsoever about that. Pine pitch chancre had carried off its piney soul well over a year ago and the bugs and woodpeckers, acting as undertakers and chief mourners, had moved in for a daily feast, while the crows and an occasional hawk and a gaggle of little birds would roost in its bare branches. Yes, the tree was as dead as a doornail.

And therein lay the problem, for you see the tree was on no-man’s land between my neighbor’s house and mine. But it wasn’t my tree or my neighbor’s tree. And Lord knows how it came to be there. Soaring fifty feet out of no-man’s land these last 25 years, it towered over the roadside, its denuded branches hovering over our respective electrical drop lines.

In common parlance, it was a street tree, on county right-of-way, the county’s tree. And since it was a street tree and now a dead street tree that would, sooner or later, topple over in the winter winds to fall on a passing car or block the road or tip onto the high power lines that run across the street, I did what any citizen would do. I called the County.

Not our problem, the County said. You’re responsible for anything from your property line to the middle of the street. Really? Then I’m going to close off that section and plant rutabagas and petunias, I said. Nope. Can’t do that. That’s County property. Really? Then a dangerous dead tree is on YOUR property. You need to come out and cut this thing down before it falls on somebody. Nope. Can’t do that. That’s your problem.

A call to Pacific Gas & Electricity resulted in their contracted tree-trimmers showing up to simply lop off a tiny section of the top the huge tree that they guessed might hit the top of the high-power transmission lines across the street should the tree topple over. No more. No less. What about the drop lines? I asked. If the tree goes down, you’ll have hot wires in the street, maybe even burn a house down. Not our problem, they replied.

So my neighbor called a tree trimmer who showed up with cherry-picker and crew and he was to simply trim the branches so the tree could still stand as a bird cafeteria and a perch. When the guy in charge yelled up to the kid in the bucket, Hey, you don’t start trimming at the top. Do that and the limbs will crash down breaking other limbs. You start at the bottom and work up, I thought, Uh-oh, a newbie’s in the bucket in the branches over the hot-drop lines. Not good. And no sooner was that thought out of my brain when a small limb flew down, hit the line, BOING-GONNGGG, whipping the power pole across the street back and forth. More not good.

Hey, hollered the man in charge to the newbie in the bucket, Hey, you’ll have to cut and drop the limbs in sections. But it was too late. There, in the middle of the drop line, yards away from where the branch hit, was a bit of wire sticking straight up that hadn’t been there before. I went into the dark, now-powerless house to call PG&E.

Like magic two trucks appeared. And when the trimmers finished in the early dark of the now cold evening, the PG&E guys fired up their fierce work lights. Moving with the studied calm of people who regularly work with lethal wires under often adverse conditions, they removed and then replaced the broken drop line.

In the morning light, it was clear to me that to the crows, who are totally new-phobic, that stumpy-branched thing standing there was NOT a tree and they would have nothing to do with it until they had a chance to study it all for a while. And within a day, one brave outlier was perched on top. Soon the other crows will re-discover that the branch stubs are a nice place to rest and keep an eye on the neighborhood. The bugs will return for lunch and with them the woodpeckers. Then all the other little birds.

And if, after seven or eight years, after all the bugs and birds are fed and this sentinel falls down and blocks a good portion of the county dirt road that runs in front of my house, I’ll just plant rutabagas and petunias in the lee of its huge trunk. And if the County calls to complain about this giant log in the middle of their road, I’ll simply say: Not my problem.