all trees go to Heaven

While I don't admit to being the greenest person (politically) on this block, I must say that I was a bit concerned this past week when our neighbors managed to remove a large tree from our shared front yard. Earlier in the day, they had been out pruning and shearing a variety of foliage, but when I came home at night, there were three Latino men outside my door hooking ropes onto the tree. Now I have nothing against Latino men, but why, oh why, were they on call to remove a beautiful tree from a shared front yard at 9pm? If they hadn't had spot lighting, they would likely have pulled down a rain gutter. And why would you tear down our perfectly fine tree? Why would you do it at night? Is it so that no one else could see?

Well this isn't the first time the tree-removal people have visited our block. They were here two months ago to take down an even bigger and even lovelier tree that was ours, oh ours, whose chief transgression was to occasionally drop leaves on my car. I was the only one who parked under the tree, and I never, oh never, complained.

What once was a yard with random leafy flowers and shrubs, and two pleasant-to-the-eye trees, now contains two leafy shrubs and two awkwardly tilled patches of bare earth. Would it have been such a bad thing to leave the trees there? I'm afraid our yard is haphazardly naked, and I don't think a few seeds and some Miracle Grow will change things.

Hmmm . . . . this coming Arbor Day (whenever that is -- see, I told you I'm not Green), you think they'd notice if, during the middle of the night, I planted two huge cottonwoods and a whole herd of fat garden gnomes?