palm tree

We cut down Mavis’s palm tree this weekend.¹ And yesterday was garbage day, so the city took away all the parts that were piled up on the street in front of our house. It wasn’t an abrupt decision; we’ve been talking about taking out the palm tree and putting in some fruit trees, an orange tree and something else, since we took out the guavasteen tree a few years ago. Mavis had scratched the bark off that one within a year of us moving here; she was looking for squirrels in the canopy. We had cut down the last remnants of that one just a couple of years ago. So, yeah, there is a giant hole in our backyard, where a big palm tree used to be, that Mavis slept under.

What was sudden is that this weekend is when we did it. A kid came to the front door, part of the crew next door trimming our neighbor’s trees and asked if we needed our palm tree looked after. And since we had almost done this same move a couple of months ago, but the stump grinder wasn’t part of that deal, I just asked him to come around and take a look. With the aid of his phone for translation I said we’d like to take the tree out and have the stump removed, could they do it? He needed to get his uncle over to confirm. A few minutes later I explained again that we wanted it out and the stump gone. He said they could do it, and for the same price as our last estimate. When? Now. I confirmed with Ali and hoped they would be done before we had friends over for dinner that evening. They were done and paid in less than two hours.

We noticed the hole in our backyard right away. I noticed the hole again when the city took it away. This wasn’t an unexpected action. We had almost done it a couple of months ago, like I said. The opportunity came Sunday, so we took it. It stung more than either of us expected, the suddenness and the surprise of it dealing double damage. It’s over now. No going back.

jg

Want to keep up? Get updates by email or RSS →