“This tree was 130 years old.”
My husband was crouched down in brush, inspecting a round of wood.
“See? I told you.”
I had counted 130 rings, too. Settlers probably logged the old-growth trees for the shingle mills in Edmonds, and then planted new trees in the 1880s.
Now our backyard looked like a place trees came to die.
This spring during a deadly windstorm a 70-foot hemlock blew over and narrowly missed our house by inches. The tree destroyed rain gutters, my vegetable garden, our side fence and years of hard work landscaping the backyard.
A month later, two-and-a-half cords of wood were neatly stacked over the remains of my cabbage patch, and my husband had sacrificed all his free time to the growing pile. We paid our son $10 an hour to split wood with his maul, but mainly it was my husband who chopped wood every night after work until dark.
But when I sat at the kitchen table this summer looking at the remaining stump, I worried about the two trees next to it. The hemlock was pockmarked by woodpeckers. The Douglas fir looked fine, but was inches away from the tree stump full of root rot. Both trees could theoretically crash through my daughter’s bedroom at any moment.
I called an arborist our family knows from Cub Scouts — a guy we really trust, to investigate. His verdict was that the safest thing to do would be to remove those two trees and windsail a couple of treacherous firs in the front yard.
Now it was fall, and there were two more downed trees to process. We had opted for the “country clean” package, which meant my husband and son were spending every weekend chopping wood.
Taking down the two additional trees hurt, not just because of the money it cost, but because those trees mattered. The pileated woodpeckers lost their playground. Our backyard tree canopy was smaller. But the wood itself told us we made the right decision.
My husband pointed out the evidence. “The outside rings are rock hard,” he said, showing me the recently felled hemlock. “But the inside is hollowed out at the bottom. No wonder the woodpeckers loved it.”
I glanced at the house and shuddered.
“The trouble is now,” my husband continued, “finding a place for all these logs.”
Our side yard was like a lumber graveyard. The wood wouldn’t be dry enough for months, and there was enough firewood for years to come.
Luckily we have an up-to-code wood burning stove. But having a fire a couple times a week is fun. Relying on a stove for your primary source of heat is a pain in the neck.
“Maybe you could sell the wood since you don’t have anything else to do,” I suggested.
“Very funny.” My husband lifted up his axe. “I’ll get right on that.”
Jennifer Bardsley is an Edmonds mom of two, and author of the book “Genesis Girl.” Find her online on Instagram @the_ya_gal, Twitter @jennbardsley or at teachingmybabytoread.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
