Day 104 – Trees Leaving

Welcome to Day 104!

This morning I received sad news, the trees along the property line between the train tracks and our place are set to be removed.  The news follows the destruction of the soundproofing fence where machinery had exposed the tree roots of a large tree especially on the house facing side which had a sound-reducing fence in place to reduce the noise of the trains behind the property.  

A recent major storm caused the tree to fall in the direction of the exposed roots onto the house, if it weren’t for the sound-reducing fence the house may have suffered a lot more damage because the tree would have gained more momentum.  As a result, the trees behind our fence are now ear-marked to be removed.  My only hope is the arborist investigating on behalf of the government who owns the land, is working on a tight budget and some of the trees are too expensive to be removed.

Despite knowing the risk, we moved into a property with the trees at the back versus the blocks up the street and were shade-less and barren looking.  Possibly, stupidly and unthinking of the consequences related to having tall trees at the back of the house, we put the master bedroom at the back of the house. Yes, closer to the trees; we wanted to get away from people noise from the street.

As upset as I am about the trees needing to come down, and I much prefer the taller trees to stay their height and location make them dangerous.  Personally, I wish the trees were simply reduced to half their height (they’re about six metres (7½ yards – is that 20 feet? – high).  Bringing the trees down to half their height which would reduce the risk of the tree falling hard and blocking the train tracks or having too much momentum and damaging homes with people in them.  Problem is, in 15 years the trees would need another visit to get another visit and major haircut to keep them safe

There was a workplace health and safety officer/ project manager who worked in my area, when it came to risks, he had a pragmatic approach.  He used to say, “everything is probable and possible, but how frequent are the circumstances to make it likely to happen?”.  Needless to say, the lesson stuck with me.  At the time we were working for a Victorian government department that included earthquakes and cyclones.  This was in an Australian state incredibly unlikely to experience them.  These risks were included for the smallest of projects.  Perhaps it was somebody’s idea of sample data, which never got removed?

It will be sad to see the rainbow lorikeets, grey heron & family (I think it’s a heron – picture below Analysis), magpie larks knocking on the dining window, storm birds, and crows leave.

Apart from the news of the trees needing to be felled, and the visions of Saruman’s forces (references) causing their destruction, the day went smoothly.  I was finally able to get to an activity which has been on my mind a lot.  Although, every time it got started there was something else to distract me, a part of me really wanted to not do this activity.  Focus and discipline were mustered and chained to the sticking point and by the close of business it was done.

Let’s see what the cards have to say!