Top This

the olympic mountains are southwest of us. a line of snow-capped peaks in winter. the trees along the property line had grown high enough to block the view, and we knew that soon the Olympics would no longer be visible. the picture below was taken in february of 2005 with our older Nikon Coolpix camera. the spiky trees without leaves are alders. when they leaf out in the summer the view is even much more obscured. this winter, in january, we recalled that the previous owners had told us that the neighbor had given them permission to trim the trees. i spoke with the neighbor and she told me to go ahead and trim whatever i wanted. they are well away from her house.

i know. a view. how petty. but it is nice to have a far view to draw one's eye to a bigger picture.so i suited up in proper attire and went to work. most of what i had to top were alders. i hauled my twelve foot ladder out there, stuck it up against an alder, climbed up, and cut it off (the alder, not the ladder) with a handsaw up as high as i could reach. (insert ladder jokes here, you know who you are) the biggest tree i had to top was a fir. might as well get it done now. hmmmmm. no way to set a ladder. i'll just have to haul me and my saw up the tree the old fashioned way. that's me below, waving. here is a movie catching the end of the action. the weather got wet and windy for several weeks, delaying trimming. when i resumed i equipped my sawsall with a wicked big-tooth blade, laid out a hella long string of extension cords, and managed to cut us a view notch. mmmmmm. power tools.


so below is a picture of our new view of mount townsend, taken with our newer Panasonic camera. in this post is a picture of our house, well, almost, from the top of mount townsend.

there's even more to cut, but today i worked on a tree on the eastern edge of our property that was blocking the morning light from the greenhouse. later, more tree trimming to show more of the olympic range.

now listen up, tree huggers. i know the tragedy of the commons. what i'm doing is closer to hedge trimming than logging. even with a sawsall and long cord, i am not a threat to the forest.

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