Less Crooked, Less Wooded

At the same time that I've been stressing quite a bit about this building project, things are moving forward. 

A little over a week ago, my dear friend who is an artist with a chainsaw came over and in about two hours felled six large trees – two dead and four living – all too close for comfort to the site for the house (especially with all of the big storms that we can expect to keep threatening the Atlantic coast). 

Two spruces felled meticulously right on top of each other.

The smaller spruce was riddled with ants. All the more reason to be glad that it's no longer towering over where the cabin will be! 

The spruce that got taken down by my compost pile was a giant. It's hard to count the rings exactly because the ones in the centre are so tiny, but my guesstimate is about 120 years. *bows head*

The giant on the ground.

There is quite a comfy spot to sit in the branches of the downed tree.

From the perch pictured just above, there is an excellent view of this crooked pine. We left this tree standing as it is obviously leaning dramatically AWAY from the site for the house and is highly unlikely to fall on top of it. 

Two steps forward and one step back: my clothesline had to be dismantled temporarily, as it was attached on one end to a maple tree that was leaning sharply toward the site for the cabin, a maple tree that can be seen here lying at feet of the other end of the clothesline. Installing the clothesline was my first DIY project on this land and it has been consistently useful;
I will miss it until it can be set up again.

Salinger was surprisingly unfazed by the changes. He seemed happy to be the conquerer of the newly felled trees, including the "clothesline maple" pictured here.

There is much more sunlight now in the Crooked Wood. It feels a bit odd, but I'm sure I'll get used to it – and I'll be especially glad to be less shaded during the brief winter days...

Last week was a hard one for me.

I felt really crappy about deciding to kill those beautiful trees. I didn't expect to feel that way because I didn't feel anywhere near as bad when we felled many more trees to bring in the driveway and the power lines. Not to mention all of the firewood I've burned to keep warm throughout my life, each chunk of which came from a beautiful, living tree and to be honest, I never really even thought about it...

Perhaps my overall state of mind, my anxiety about the build, is what made me feel so guilty and sad about these trees. Or maybe I felt so bad because I knew these trees. I've lived here for two summers now and those trees have been some of my closest neighbours.

They were beautiful. They were my elders. They were here first. And I had them removed because they were in my way and because I could. They grew here for sixty, eighty, a hundred+ years and then each came down in a matter of minutes.

And although we honoured and embraced them before they were felled, and although they will live on, becoming furniture and/or hugelkultur beds and/or firewood and/or beautiful decomposing logs and brush that will nourish this land and give life to other trees, to fungi, mosses and insects, I mourn them. (Their deaths have made me look at some tricky questions around my own sense of entitlement, but I think I'll save those thoughts for another blog post).

As things stand now, "Them's history," as my Nana would have said. Fortunately, I'm recovering from feeling guilty and sad about deciding to cut them down. I'm doing this – I'm making a permanent dwelling for myself on this piece of land and there is no point feeling bad about it. Since I'm going to do it anyway, it's better to do it with love, gratitude and celebration than with self-doubt and regret.

This attitude adjustment has arrived just in the nick of time: we're breaking ground today.