Pine Trees – A Love/Hate Relationship
I love going to the mountains – the clean air, the wildlife, and the pines. I love their majesty and resilience. The scent of pine is used in air fresheners and cleaning products. But having a pine tree on your property in Maricopa County can be a love/hate relationship.
First of all, they drink water like a wanderer in the desert. My water bill in August was almost a thousand dollars, because I’m trying to make my acre lot an oasis, or at least a piece of Illinois. Counting the Palms, I’ve had upward of a hundred trees on the property, including six Aleppo Pines and a Douglas fir planted one Christmas, long before I purchased the property in 1992. I’ve lost two over the years, and next week I say goodbye to two more.
Let me tell you about the first victim. One morning in 1999, we looked out the kitchen window to see a pine tree toward the back of our lot. It was leaning about 40 degrees to the left. I went out and found a huge puddle of water on the side of the tree away from the lean. The problem, I discovered, was that the main water line from the house to the meter had been broken, probably by this tree’s roots, and the meter was running like a three-year-old at the Derby.
I turned off the water at the meter. A nice gentleman came out and replaced the pipe with copper. The old one was ugly galvanized steel anyway. We allowed the puddle to dry, but what to do with the 100 ft Pine tree leaning in the yard?
Well, we ordered two telephone poles and had another nice gentleman (I call these men gentlemen because they charge so much) come out with an auger to drill two holes for the telephone poles. He then dropped the poles into the holes. Then we had another nice gentleman design and install a chain sling to go from pole to pole, under the Pine tree so it couldn’t lean any further. This worked beautifully for about ten years, when the tree died of undetermined causes. That’s when another nice gentleman came out and cut the tree down, ground the stump, and while he was there, pulled the poles out of the ground. I still have the poles laying on the ground. One demarcates a flower bed, and the other is just shoved against the far wall.
Then, about five years ago, another Pine dried. No reason. All the others were fine. I think they just get old and quit. Anyway, another removal and let me tell you, this wasn’t like paying for monthly yard care. It was a few thousand dollars.
Now we come to the most beautiful trees you’ve ever seen. One is on the west side of my house, and it must be 150 ft tall with huge limbs reaching over a third of my roof. The second is on the north side near my master bedroom. It is so majestic, I once contemplated building a treehouse in it. But two years ago, we had a huge storm and the next morning, the north half of the tree was laying halfway across my acre lot. At the time, I thought how lucky that it didn’t split and fall on my bedroom with me fast asleep.
So, we had the half on the ground hauled off and the remaining half trimmed up. It’s still beautiful. I often have my morning coffee looking at its glory. But lately, a new split has developed, and the monster on the west side has begun to die. This is after years of feeding and watering.
Next Saturday, the 9th, a crew of nice gentleman will arrive with saws and a crane – that’s right, a crane – and they will remove this existential threat to my little house.
I will miss them.
– Joseph
Trees
by Joyce Kilmer
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.