House looks naked without living thing

Our house is naked and exposed. The electric company hired somebody to murder our Eastern white pine tree and take it away.

I shouldn't be complaining. We knew it was going to happen. They warned us last fall. The tree was growing into the power lines and something had to be done. They offered to lop off the offending parts or remove it completely.

We cringed and told them to remove it. They paid us for the tree. Topping a tree seems like torture to me and even though I doubt if it has feelings, I can't see maiming it in the name of power lines.

It was an Eastern white pine not a Midwestern white pine. It didn't thrive in our midwestern clay soil. It had been planted too close to the driveway or maybe we put the driveway too close to the tree.

I rarely fed it because I didn't want it to grow too quickly, believing that a slow-growing tree is stronger than a fast-growing one. Consequently its needles were decidedly yellower and sparser than they should have been.

It was the right decision to remove it.

Still . . . the house looks naked without it. There is light where once there was shade. I knowingly caused the death of a living thing.

I don't understand why I am so upset. Things die on my behalf everyday. Cows, pigs, chickens and plants of all kinds die so that I can live. As a matter of fact I currently have several dead or dying houseplants sitting around waiting to become compost. Plus there was that bag of spinach that liquified in the crisper drawer; it gave its life for nothing.

When we first moved into the house there were four Eastern white pine trees in a row. The grass was taller than they were. One succumbed to the lawn mower, two were stepped on and broken and one lived. Now there are none.

There is something about watching a living thing grow from infancy into towering adulthood. It gives one an unwarranted sense of ownership and responsibility. If something bad happens to something I have helped care for, I feel guilty.

It doesn't help that I came of age during the time of hippies and tree-huggers. It is not advisable to hug a pine tree of any kind because they get sappy and ooze sticky stuff when embraced.

After the weather warms, if it ever does, I will plant all kinds of stuff in the pine tree's honor. I will make sure the mature height of whatever I choose will be well below the power lines. Until then, the house will just have to get used to feeling naked and exposed.

Maybe the unfamiliar sunshine on its siding will help it adjust to life without its friend.[[In-content Ad]]