It’s hard to judge from the photo just how big this gentle giant is.  He is huge!

If you could peek through the trees a few feet, you would be able to watch the Keystone Pipeline being put in.  Workers pushed over the trees in this wooded area  to make a place for the pipes.  Part of me would like to blame the workers for knocking over healthy wood, but these trees were nearly all past their prime and should have been thinned  long ago.  Over the years when the pups and I have walked by, I was struck by how many trees were still upright simply because they had died leaning against a fellow tree.

One day during a bad storm, this giant of a tree was knocked over.  Even though he was down, he continued growing and put out a full display of leaves that first year.  By the second year, his spirit flagged.  As you can see in the photo, his leaves were thin, and he looked tired.

At the end of the Summer, he finally gave up and died.  He had had enough.  What is sad to me is that he has had to lie there for all of those years while the township mowed around him.  Again, my photography isn’t good, but there is an island of unreasonably tall grass as large as the outline of the tree.

Toby and I walked past the tree last week.  I brushed against a branch, and it was so brittle it easily snapped off.  Inspired, I broke off more and more.  On several more days (sans Toby) I went back to the park and broke off all the branches that would snap.  I even dug through the snow to reach the ones buried under the 30″ tall grass.

This is fun for me.  I like the work, and I like making that public area look better.  I am planning to sneak back with a saw and keep hacking the tree into pieces that I can drag into the woods.  I am wondering how long I can do this before someone decides to yell at me.  You know, because after nearly 3 years of ignoring the problem, the township is suddenly going to develop an interest in it.

I hope that the parts of the tree I have returned to the woods will decompose and become fertile ground for new life.   Season by season we can watch that stand return to its former glory.

I can’t believe you are getting rid of my chance to pee on the top of a giant tree!

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