Halifax is my hometown, and one of the things I’ve loved the most about this city is all the trees. And after all it IS the “city of trees.”
So for those who decide to move into a neighbourhood with beautiful old trees, and then cut them down!?!? You don’t deserve to live here. I don’t know where you came from, but why on earth would you destroy a beautiful tree like the one that has graced this neighbourhood in your backyard for 50-something years now. If you didn’t like the trees you should have moved into one of those new neighbourhoods with the postage stamp yards and no trees. Stay inside and watch your freakin huge TV that is blazing away every night, while no one is even in the yard. You don’t enjoy nature obviously, so live in a fucking apartment building. All I know is, if there is karma at work, mother nature has got something real special in mind for you. —Leave The Trees Alone!
This article appears in Sep 6-12, 2012.
1- Karma doesn’t exist. Even if it did, it’s *just a tree*. Do you think the universe will strike the cutter with weeping boils and cancer for cutting down their own property?
Don’t think so.
2- Go tell them, otherwise it’s “just a tree”, and you have no idea why they cut it down(could have been a hazard, dead, adding on to the house, etc)
Wp
i have never heard halifax called the city of trees before. It is their yard if they want to cut down everything on it then that is their choice. Frankly its none of your business
OP, would this be a case a bad feng shui? the massive cypresses and cedars of shaughnessey in vancouver are almost all gone now, bad feng shui to have large trees looming over the ‘property line to property’ line monster houses that replaced the also torn down arts ‘n crafts homes, georgians and thatch roofed cottages. street after delightful street now changed to pink stucco behemoths with concrete yards and small ornamental trees in pots.
perhaps your neighbour hates raking, willows are notorious shedders in the fall. i just planted 3 of them and raking be damned. that’s what the wind is for.
i would curse him too, OP. nothing you can do except bitch. move heaven and earth to get yourself to the country. city living requires too much compromise for what you get in return.
A tree is still a part of a community, but I’m inclined to agree with Wheelie. If you say nothing, then it is ‘just a tree’.
It should remain standing unless it’s a hazard to the neighborhood.
Well, now we know where Joseph Kony is hiding. Alert Interpol, OP, and you may get featured on America’s Most Wanted. >; )
When we had our house built 20 years ago I asked the contractor if he could save 2 large beautiful trees on the lot instead of chopping them down. Thankfully, he did and I love the noise they make on a summer evening as I sit on the deck drinking a beer, or several, also they provide a barrier between my lot and the neighbours, so I have added privacy at no cost. The leaf raking is a bit of a chore, but it’s a small price to pay for 2 trees.
Dear Cap’n Planet-
A tree is obviously not a member of the community as a person is, but I think I see what you mean.
I hope I don’t come off as “kill all the trees”, because I really do love nature, but being a species that needs space to grow, we sometimes have to trim the greeners back. Clear cutting rain forests make me pretty sad though.
But for backyard trees, I’m not too heartbroken. My mom cried when NS Power trimmed back the trees near the power lines behind her property but they have that right. Mom and Dad’s yard is all moss because the trees cut off the sunlight. Mom has it stuck in her head that they need that amount of canopy though.
To each their own.
I hope your promotion to Colonel Planet comes through. I’ve put you in for a Green Star with Clusters for all your hard work!
Wp
I appreciate the recommendation Wheelie, and I’ll be sure to mention your name in my speech at the promotion party.
You’re right tho, they’re not people. But, they do contribute to their communities, and have since we evolved out of them.
We had to take a willow tree out of the front yard one time. It had been luring millions of earwigs onto the property, and subsequently into our home. The thousands of earwig corpses littering our home made the task of removing the tree very bearable.
hey wheelie, don’t know if we have spoken before…maybe your mom needed that canopy ‘just because’. to each his own, yes. some people need a lot of greenery around. that canopy could have homed a lot of birds, maybe she misses their singing and their antics as they scooted around. or watching the squirrels’ death defying leaps. the way light changes, filtred thru green. and the sound of the wind soughing thru the branches. a bit of moss is a small price to pay, like mr munny and his raking. again, to each his own but i bet your mom felt each cut in her heart. i would. how long ago was it? maybe you could write her a small card saying you understand her missing the trees. even if you don’t feel the same way she does it acknowledges her feelings.
now just to set the record straight, i have personally cut over 200 trees in my yard, but they were little’uns and i did it to let the remaining ones prosper. get enough air and light and nutrients. also planted a dozen of other varieties. and i am brutal about ‘thrive or die’ in my garden. but i think 100 times before cutting a mature tree, and it is a serious decision. cutting for hydro lines is a shame, but neccessary.
If a tree falls on a line and cuts power to the neighbourhood, everyone pays. The land belongs to NSP, and it’s their right to treat it as they see fit.
My mom’s issue is anxiety and inability to change, not listening to birds. There are trees all over the neighbourhood already. Losing some dead or dying trees to let in sinlight won’t hurt anything except the anxiety demon in her head. My mom is an awesome mom, but she cultivates anxiety like people cultivate plants.
wp
ok then.
If we plant a Willow Tree on SGR maybe it will attract all the bums and scummers, making it that much easier to club the fuckers.
I think “just a tree” is an antiquted phrase what with the perils of anthropocentric climate change facing humanity. Trees are natural carbon filters. That said, the reason why the neighbour cut the tree down is missing. It may been old and teetering and maybe about to fall on his house. If it was diseased, cutting it down would be a good thing as not to spread the disease. If buddy was just too lazy to rake leaves, time to start throwing poo at him.j/k
Wheelie mentioned “as a species that needs room to grow”, he hit the central issue of most man-made environmental issues. Development of the natural world causes definite habitat loss and the issues of overpopulation are going affect the quality of life down the road for most people.
Do we need to grow? Haven’t we grown enough?
troodon, have you read jude the obscure by hardy? do you remember what the boy did ‘because we was too many’ ?
the governments of countries do not want to limit growth, to a government, growth is progress. canada just signed an agreement to ‘love cherish and protect’ trade with a country that will not legislate against an industry that skins animals alive to made cheap boots, or poisons their trading partners’ children with melamine.
growth is not good of itself. cancer grows and destroys it’s host, so it’s not even good, ultimately, for the thing which grows. our host, this planet, this achingly beautiful, gloriously generous and complex planet is groaning under the burden of us.
Just goes to show how truly ahead of its time Moonraker really was.
I understand that there are complexities to world economies and a lot of that has to do with the speculation of growth and need. I’m not a sociopath, I don’t hate people but I would love to hear somebody ask those questions. To me we’re driving towards a cliff and know there’s a braintrust somewhere out there but can’t anyone suggest slowing down or maybe even turning off at the next exit?
Are we so obsessed with the here and now that we can’t peer down the road a bit?
I also understand asking for the need for sacrifice (when not war related) is like political suicide so governments stay away from that as long as they can. The only politician with the balls to ask the populace for sacrifice (in regards to their use of gasoline and oil) was Jimmy Carter and where did that get him? Routed in the next election. I guess a clueless doddering old actor was more their flavour.
Do people really think we can continually develop and exploit and nothing will happen? Even if one doesn’t care if any other living creature exists or not, the effect on humanity will be devastating and irreparable. Unless they don’t care about that either. Now who’s the sociopath?
nobody hate trees, they just want more usable room on their property. if it was me, i would have left it there. the place i have up in stewiacke, have a zillion trees on it and not going to remove any, unless they are dead, or fallen from a storm.
my friend and i have a pellet stove, so no real need to knock any down. plus, it gives us privacy when we go there, and in the fall,makes a cool picture. we hunt there all the time, and i decided to buy the 70 acres last year.
no one in their right mind cuts trees down for no reason o.p., something must have been wrong with it.
most politicians care only as far as the next election, and cannot make hard decisions that would produce benefits 25 years down the road. even individuals have blinders on about the effects of their actions and choices now will have on their own grandchildren. and so much is ‘why should i make a sacrifice when my neighbour won’t?’ (this applies to countries as well as cities/towns/individuals) i suppose this is where a non-elected dictator who plans on being immortal would come in handy.
example, gov’ts in n america knew in the 50’s that 60-70 years later there would be a huge number of people entering senior years. the pig in the python. but no one made plans for it. what 1980’s gov’t would put aside money to build care homes, hospitals, housing? or 1990’s. or at any point along the snake. were they hoping for a convenient pestilence? no. they knew the problem would crop up long after they were out of office.
Sir Troodon Formosus, The Far Sighted.