Luckbar Jack

We came home from our Sunday afternoon walk to a cacophony of buzzing and crashing sounds. Our neighbour was up in his trees trying to finish the pruning job he started last Fall. There is a tight cluster of four trees in the corner of his yard that he apparently does not like. We like it because it hides the other neighbour's ugly deck.

The dutiful wife was safely on the ground, keeping the extension cord connection intact, and bringing him tea and bananas, while keeping a safe distance away.

Lucky the Lumberjack was perched almost 30 feet above the ground, one arm wrapped around the tree, the other wielding an electric chain saw. Note the safety equipment: Hard hat, safety rope, steel toed logging boots, gloves, etc.

He suddenly found himself in a tangle because the branches he was cutting were not falling to the ground but getting hung up on lower branches.

He deftly extricated himself from that pickle, and began sawing off the very branch he was standing on.

He did leave himself a tiny foothold, but it was still a long way down to his ladder.

With a mighty stretch and one last perch to support his weight, he got one foot on the top rung of the ladder.

Then he started 'burning his bridges behind him'. No turning back now. But what about the tops of these huge trees? They are now so severely pruned that they will surely die.

Perhaps he learned about Western Red Cedar and Birch in the Punjab. Or perhaps he was avoiding a permit, from the city, to remove the trees.

If you prune them and they die, you do not need a permit to remove them nor are you required to replace them.

Trust these people to bend the rules to their advantage. Now we have four tall, very ugly sticks pointing to the sky, and no more birds that used to nest in this cluster of beautiful trees. The neighbour behind the photo no longer will have that wonderful midsummer shade in his yard, and we have to look at what was being successfully hidden there. I do not understand his reasoning nor his methods. Perhaps he only needed firewood.

City bylaws prevent me from building a fence high enough to block this ugly sight.