When I got back to Wisconsin, after seven months in Colorado, the St. Croix Tree Service was there to take down my last elm.
The old elm is right next to my garage, its huge canopy of branches overhanging the neighbor’s house. Not an easy job. So they brought in a four-man crew, cleared the snow, and cut away the branches in pieces, starting from the top.
I watched them work, and I felt a little sad. I have only one mature tree left on my property: a towering white pine that’s missing half its branches. One by one, the huge elms and pine have come down, victims of disease and drought and old age. And last spring, after a killing winter that dropped to -20F and stayed there for a week, I lost six of the small trees I’d planted to replace the elms.
The place is very different now: more open, more sunny, more bare. I hope the birds don’t mind too much.