Dennis the Menace
It has been sort of blustery here for the last few days.
It started with Ciara apparently, Ciara being the tacky name they gave the wind. So Ciara hung around for a while and then magically transgendered into Dennis without any letup in the wind.
So It’s now Dennis that is battering my trees.
The main reason I dislike wind is because of the trees. I have a lot of them but distinctly fewer than I used to have, due to previous winds. I had a fine avenue of Silver Birches down the lane, but one by one the wind got them and there isn’t a single one left standing. Not that I would notice that much because I still have loads of other trees left standing.
Fifty or so odd years ago there wasn’t a single bush or tree on the entire estate, or indeed in the whole area. My parents [bless ’em] decided we needed some shelter so they used to do raids up the mountains to rob saplings out of the various woods. Each was then brought down in the boot of the car and carefully planted around the place. They did a lot of robbing.
It is amazing how much a tree can grow in fifty to sixty years.
Most of them are grand in a wind. They just sway around and some of ’em sling pine cones around the place. But there is one – a Silver Spruce – that my mother planted as a “specimen tree” on the main lawn. It is a massive monster, forty to fifty feet high and used to be a perfect conical shape, but the winds have taken their toll. The is a huge chunk missing from one side where a massive branch came down so it’s not exactly symmetrical any more. Since then several more branches have dropped off it but they usually get stuck somewhere up the tree which gives it a very threadbare look. I noticed a few minutes ago that another huge branch has split off and is stuck up there near the top. I suppose it will fall eventually.
Then there is another line of Silver Birches along another boundary with the neighbours. Those trees have a habit of shedding a branch or five during a storm, and again, the branches tend to get stuck in other branches before eventually falling down. I see Dennis has damaged one of them again. There is a huge branch resting horizontally near the top of one tree. It’s right over the spot where Neighbour parks his brand new pride and joy of a car.
I wonder if I should tell him?
No. Wait until it falls and then go and ask if you can have your property back. Fire wood.
Good thinking.
Ah, transgender storms. I wonder if they'll make that a new gender…
Back to reality, my property(s)–same property but split into two, both kitty corner to other so no shared boundary–have a lot as trees like yours. The lower property where the house and outbuildings sit has 1 swamp maple, 1 sugar maple and and one grand silver maple. There's also three white birches with a common trunk, an ancient apple tree and two oriental type somethings. Oh, and two weeping willows. Beautiful to look at in the summer but boy do they leave a mess to clean up. The others drop branches down every year due to high winds and such. Keeps us healthy I suppose what with all that exercise.
The upper property is mostly woods. We don't bother cleaning that up too much.
And we have a name for the large-ish broken branches that hang up in the tree:
Widow Makers.
I will be honest – my knowledge of trees is limited and I can only identify a few. I have several Silver Birches [remaining], a Weeping Birch, the Silver Spruce, a couple of Hollies, a huge Bay, a Yew and a load of others such as various Pines, Cupressus and some others I can't name. They are all gradually encroaching on any open space which at least means that I have less lawn to cut each year.
Ah, nothing like an encroaching tree line to ease your mowing duties.
Dennis? Pah! Wait until Storm Greta arrives.
Heh! I dare them to use that name. :twisted;
"I wonder if I should tell him?"
Depends entirely on whether he's a Nice Neighbour or a Nasty one …..
Nice. He gave me a duty-free litre of Jameson Whiskey the last time he was abroad.