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Measuring one’s power

March 25, 2009

trees

No, this is not a logging coop but a section of our yard.

Well, it’s almost 2 months since we settled (closed) on our old place and moved.  It’s been interesting getting used to being in the same area but in a different house.  Not long after we had moved in, we had 10 extremely large pine trees cut down.  They impeded all our NE sun and stopped anything growing on at least half the property.  I am no fan of these introduced trees, which are majestic but completely dominate any area they are in.  So we made the decision to cut them down (with approval from relevant official bodies) and in doing so, to chip, mill and use all the trees on site.

All of these ‘facts’ and intentions are fine in theory….yes, the trees are a weed;  yes, they take up all our light;  yes, although I can’t stand pine it will be used for building, furniture making, yes, more suitable trees will be planted to replace them and so on……but when you see trees of 50- 100 years lying on the ground…..well, I burst into tears. It was destruction and those logs could not be put back together.

I was struck by how ‘our’ idea had made this happen.  How there were guys, chainsaws, a chipper and a crane and we had initiated the process.  How although it is a change for the better and neighbours on the whole were happy to have sun in their yards as much as we were…..it was so intense.

For me, it is a lesson about one’s will and desire. It illustrates to me that what you think, what you think you know and the actual knowing are all very different. And when making a decision even after weighing it all – sometimes we still don’t have any real understanding of how to measure our power.

from → Thinking
5 Comments leave one →
  1. Kathy permalink
    March 26, 2009 7:05 am

    I couldn’t agree more! I still remember my distress when a row of majestic trees was cut by the council (or whoever is in charge of roads) to widen the road into Brunswick Heads. It hurt me physically for months. Chainsaws, in particular, do so much damage in such a short time that simply can’t ever be put back together again.

    Reply
  2. shellywoman permalink
    March 27, 2009 2:17 am

    ponder and learn…

    Reply
  3. Nada permalink
    April 1, 2009 9:52 pm

    Kathy: Hi! Hope that you are surviving the rain up there. The trees did need to come down but that in itself didn’t make it easier. The chainsaws were just amazing……sometimes there were several going at once, to try to get the job done quickly – part of our street was closed off to be able for the guys to work safely. It was such a big deal and organisational feat….sigh! I’m glad that I won’t have to make this kind of decision again!

    Shellywoman: Indeed!

    Reply
  4. Kathy permalink
    April 1, 2009 11:52 pm

    We had a smallish flood on Monday, but it was nothing compared to what they have had in Coffs and Bellingen. We seem to be quite safe and secure here, and if we hated rain we’d have had to leave many, many years ago. :~)

    I hope your winter sunlight gives you great joy and lots of vegetables!!!!!

    Reply
  5. Raffi permalink
    May 28, 2009 1:58 am

    Hi, I can’t find your email address, so I’m writing to you here – so consider this an email… no need to approve the comment once you’ve read it! 🙂

    I started a gardening wiki site with a plant encyclopedia a couple of years back. The idea of the site is a gardeners version of Wikipedia, with a growing number of plant articles (over 6,000 already) – that will hopefully one day include every single garden plant in the world, and focus solely on how to grow them. Because it’s a wiki, anyone can edit it, so hopefully more and more people will help with this seemingly limitless project! I’ve just added a search box that allows your visitors to directly search the plant database from your site. All you have to do is copy/paste a snippet of code onto your site, and visitors can lookup any plant you’ve mentioned in your blog to learn a bit more about it.

    I think you might find a plant search box cool for your site – a gardeners version of the Google or Amazon search boxes you see on sites. The plant article will let’s your visitors check out what zones and situations the plants require, how big they get, when they bloom/fruit, and learn how to grow them. Of course, as a wiki, it is always a work in progress, but there are already over 6,000 articles, and 10,000 photos, and the number grows daily.

    If you might be interested in adding a search box on the side of your blog, you can see what it looks like and the cut and paste code on this page:
    plants.am/wiki/Plants.am_search_box

    Thanks for your blog, and feel free to get in touch with any questions,
    Raffi

    Reply

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