Maybe not a wilderness per se, but one big honking tree. An unexpected wind burst (80 mph which sounded like 300) during an otherwise routine summer thunderstorm toppled the largest tree in our yard. I estimate it was 30’ tall and almost as wide. Magically, when laid over, I think it grew to at least 70’ high and wide as I stood beside it contemplating the task of removal.
After a brief but sad period of mourning I began lopping off the smaller branches for burning. Which totally destroyed my carbon budget for the next 8 years, I calculate. I soon came face to face with a truth of nature: there’s a lot of wood in a tree.
We raised said tree from a twig, accidentally leaving it as we cleared an old farm lot to build our house in 1978. It was a fence-row survivor, probably cut off at least once, so three shoots merged in later years to form a massive trunk.
It was decades before we even tried to identify its species and only got as close as “some kind of mulberry.” It grew like we watered it with steroids, however. Spreading both out and up, it bullied neighboring trees and shaded any grass completely out.
Now it lay broken and deserving a decent funeral pyre. I remember thinking it would be a little work but shouldn’t take too long as I nibbled away each day on progressively larger limbs. Two facts were forgotten then: foliage is really heavy and I was no longer in my prime, hard-work-wise.
I spent two weeks of diligent hacking and extreme effort to get a fire hot enough for green wood burning. My trusty and yank-free electric chainsaw (Delta 16”, 40 volt) [not a paid endorsement, but corporate contributions greatly appreciated] lopped off branches which then immediately tangled into inseparable masses slowing the demolition to a crawl.
At the rate I was clearing, I calculated pioneers with axes opened the Cumberland pass faster than I was dragging limbs to a burn pile. There was also a great deal of collateral operator damage, and we soon began celebrating “no Band-Aid” days.
In the end, I calculate I will have handled enough board feet of lumber to qualify for a trade war. But the real loss is the missing tooth smile of our western skyline. We know other trees, like famers renting land, are already charging into the gap, but just like you can’t make old friends, remember you can’t plant old trees.
