Murder Most Foul

The deed is done. My ailing Lombardy Poplar is just a memory now, as is my perfectly healthy Sugar Pine. The pine had to come down before it encroached further into my exposed aggregate patio and eventually, my pool, and the poplar was removed because it was dying and posed an imminent threat to my house and neighboring property. But what a mess in my driveway. Free firewood! Anybody in the bay area who wants some of this can email me for my address and come and help yourself.

Yesterday when the arborists were cutting down the trees, I felt like Lady Macbeth inciting her husband to murder. My dad planted both of the poplar trees about 40 years ago - under the illusion they would give our side yard a Mediterranean feel or the feeling you get when you see Van Gough's "L'Allee des Peupliers." All I ever got from those trees was the feeling that a good wind would create a huge mess in the yard. But the dying tree was euthanized and the corpse removed. And I still have one strong, healthy poplar that was given a makeover during yesterday's festivities.

As for the pine tree, that was beautiful and perfectly healthy. But the roots were destroying the patio and heading toward the pool and the repair bills would have been astronomical so the hanging judge, here, sentenced it to death by decapitation. Sad, though, because one of our neighbors planted that tree for my grandmother back in the 50s.

The trees are dead. Long live the yard.