Prelude To Butchery

I suppose the good news is the DOT and EMC are in sync with their tree hacking schedules. I won't have to be offended on two widely separate occasions. I came home this evening to see the DOT had used their hydraulic arm chopping machine to hack back the trees from the byway.

I had been impressed with what a nice job they were doing coming up the mountain. By the time they got to me the blade was obviously a whole lot duller. No more clean chops. They left me with shredded ends.

They chopped from the east end of the roadside vegetable garden, past the old chimney, to Bulbarella's driveway and beyond. Then they tossed all manner of ten foot long branches down the hill into the wild cultivated gardens. I have spent the last nine years tidying up that kind of debris.

All I have to say is the EMC better not be getting any notions that this is not a regularly maintained area due to the recent rubbish additions and they can now just chop it and leave their rubbish too. If I see the DOT in the morning we may just have to have a little talk. The hydraulic armed chopper is parked right below me.

I like my forest tidy. That is no easy task with the regular dead fall alone. Additional chopping without cleanup only makes matters worse.

There was no evidence of chopping directly above me along the byway. I don't know if that means they decided it did not need chopping or if they just haven't done it yet. I will say this is the slowest paced push back of the forest I have ever seen. They have been managing a couple hundred yards a day at best.

I will definitely have to stop and chat with them if I see them in the morning. I do not want to come home to piles of chopped limbs tossed down the slope into the garden.

I have begun my own chop and drop of the Lush in preparation for the utility easement tree trimmers. Bright orange tape adorns the baby shrubberies in the danger zone. It is my hope they will make an effort to be careful when they pick all that crap up. I did it last time all by myself nine years ago. I'm not getting shafted again.

This is a regularly maintained garden now.

There are pluses and minuses to living along the scenic byway with a utility easement running through the property. Sometimes the minuses pile up. The pluses always win out.