No, I have not been shrunk down to gnome size. That’s the ten-foot section of trunk that’s left of the centuries-old oak tree that used to be in our backyard until it started falling apart a few weeks ago.

Yesterday the tree guys came and took down what was still standing, which will help us sleep a lot better. It was pretty nerve-wracking while it was going on, with constant thuds of falling limbs and sections. This was a big oak, and at one point they were hauling down a limb that was the size of a pretty good tree in itself.

(They also took down a tree by the driveway that had grown through a chain-link fence and was therefore pretty weak. A similar one had fallen down a few years ago while we were out of town on vacation, during a windstorm. When I heard them cutting this one down I looked to watch and saw the guy with the saw, but not the ladder. I then realized he had climbed the tree. He was standing in a tree with a weak trunk, holding a chainsaw and lopping away at the tree he was standing in. These guys!)

All this time I have been too preoccupied with the stress and fear and frustration and now I finally have a chance to really mourn the loss of this great oak tree. It really is a shame to see it go. Our backyard is completely transformed now, and seems lifeless and vacant, even with this trunk still there.

They’ll have to come back later and get the trunk out. (I wouldn’t mind keeping it there, but that’s not a hot idea, since it’s already attracting carpenter ants and termites and other things you don’t want to set out a welcome mat for.) As noted before, there’s freakin’ concrete in the trunk and they have no idea how far down it goes, so taking it down may be a huge mess.

Once they’re all done we’ll get the fence fixed and see what we can do to bring some life back into the yard. Just off the top of my head, I’m thinking this: