The Day of Chainsaws

Newsletter 2022-04-25

Trees. They’re big. They’re dumb. And they’re out to kill me. But not if I kill them first.

Okay, so I don’t really hate trees. I do hate being out among them, though, especially overnight. For years, camping has been miscategorized as a recreational activity when it’s really a form of torture. It’s boring, it’s cold, and you have to poop in a hole. Not exactly my ideal way to spend a weekend. Trees are slightly less bad if you only walk through them as opposed to sleeping among them, but even then, they have their downsides. If you’re the first person on a forest trail in the morning, you’re bound to walk through an infinite number of spider webs, all of which use trees as their anchors. At first glance, it seems like an error by the spiders to set up shop at well-traveled locations where their work is guaranteed to be destroyed, but I think it’s deliberate. Other insects don’t stick to human trails, so I can only assume spiders are specifically targeting people. The spiders figure that, after you walk through your ten thousandth spider web, you’ll be so grossed out that you’ll just lie down and die. It’s not an unrealistic expectation. It only takes me about five spider webs to get to that point. And trees are accessories to it all.

So why do so many people like trees when they’re so clearly evil? Trees have a well-paid and highly unethical public relations team behind them. One of the first things people think of when they hear the word “trees” is “oxygen,” which shows just how much we’ve been brainwashed by slick marketing campaigns. Don’t get me wrong, I like breathing as much as the next guy. Suffocating to death is very much not on my to-do list, but trees exaggerate their role in saving us from their terrible fate. Oceanic plankton actually produces most of the oxygen on earth, and, as a bonus, never drops a bunch of leaves that you have to rake up. But no passionate environmentalists are handcuffing themselves to plankton to save it from lumberjacks. Partially, that’s because it’s impossible to cut down plankton, but it’s also because trees stole all the credit and are now the only part of nature anyone cares about. Plankton has never inconvenienced my life in any way while also doing most of the heavy lifting to keep me alive. Trees are malicious posers by comparison.

If I seem bitter about trees this week, it’s because I am. My property started out with three huge, mature ash trees. All of them were dying from the moment we moved in. I supposed that’s not unique. Every day, we all move one step closer to death. This has turned out to be a very cheery newsletter. These trees, though, were advancing toward death faster than them most. They all had the emerald ash borer, a fatal tree bug that infests approximately 100 percent of ash trees around the world. For once, that’s not hyperbole. The emerald ash borer is expected to literally make all ash trees go extinct. As their name suggests, ash borers kill trees by slowly boring them to death, usually by reading them bad poetry. There’s nothing worse than death by iambic pentameter. Our three trees were dying from the outside in, with the outer branches losing their leaves while the inner ones still clung to some semblance of life. As the limbs died, they fell, threatening the various kids and miniature livestock scurrying around below. Some of the branches were thicker than my arm and taller than me. A direct hit from one would undoubtedly be fatal. The trees decided that if they had to go, they were going to take everyone else with them. If a tree falls in the forest and no one survives to hear it, is it still a murder-suicide?

For years, my main response to this unfolding crisis was to do absolutely nothing. I‘m an expert at springing into inaction. Each season, more branches fell, and the surviving sections of the trees got uglier and uglier. I could relate to the last part. Time also hasn’t done my appearance any favors. The tree that concerned me the most was the one in front of the house. We parked under it every day. The chance that a massive branch would fall and damage or crush one or both of our vans was definitely greater than zero. Since the tree was located between the sidewalk and the street, it was technically the city’s problem. They would have to pay to remove it. I called them once a year to see if they’d take care of it. Each time, they sent out a guy to evaluate if the situation was as dire as I claimed. Two years in a row, they decided it wasn’t quite dead enough yet. Maybe they thought that, unlike every other ash tree in the world, this one would make a miraculous recovery. Perhaps it could even pass on the cure to other trees, thereby saving the entire species. I’d hate to kill the Jesus tree. Finally, the third year I contacted them, the city’s expert conceded that my tree was not, in fact, the chosen one. A crew chopped the tree into pieces and pulverized those pieces into mulch. Then they ground down the stump so there was no sign there had ever been a tree there at all. I’m surprised they didn’t salt the earth before they left. They taught that tree a lesson, but not one that it would appreciate because it was a tree and also dead. One third of my tree problems were solved.

Meanwhile, the two ash trees in the backyard continued getting worse. The fate of their brother out front failed to scare them straight. This winter, I didn’t go into my backyard even once. It was cold and filled with flash frozen pig poop, so I left the entire area as a problem for spring. Eventually, spring did come, which is never guaranteed in the Midwest. First, we get seventeen false springs interspersed with surprise snow storms and abominable snowman attacks. When the weather finally turned, I reluctantly went into the backyard to take care of all the chores I had put off for months. I was greeted by a horror show. The yard was a sea of broken limbs of all sizes, with some so large I could barely drag them out of the way. Worse, there were even bigger limbs hanging by a thread from trees, waiting to crush the first person who walked under them during a light breeze. I enlisted all of my kids to help me pick up sticks (Why else even have children?), and together, we cleared the yard. It took forever, and they complained the whole time, but not quite as loudly as me. Somewhere in the middle of this process, it finally dawned on me that this wasn’t going to stop until I had personally removed two entire dead trees from the backyard one stick at a time. I had hit the critical tipping point where it was going to be less work to do something than to continue to do nothing. The next day, I began making calls. It was time to remove the trees for good.

I got two estimates for removing both trees, which is one more than I usually get. It’s a good thing I did. There was a $1,500 difference between them. I went with the cheaper option, as is my nature. I’m not sure what extra goodies the more expensive service offered. Maybe they would have given me a back massage and pedicure while they massacred my trees. I didn’t have any direct contact with the tree service I hired. Their guy looked at the trees when I wasn’t home and sent me the estimate by email. I never even signed anything. I clicked “accept” on the estimate, and that was it. The tree assassination industry is surprisingly modern.

Then, silence. That’s the usual custom for anyone I hire. Just ask any of the long line of contractors who ghosted me. Any job worth doing is worth not doing at all. The tree guy, though, jumped the gun. He cut off contact before I paid him. That seems like a flawed business model. I sent him several follow-up emails and, finally, a voicemail, which shows just how desperate I really was. Things have to be pretty bad for me to risk actually talking to you. I didn’t need him to confirm the date when he would show up. I knew that would be expecting too much. I was fine with “someday,” which is the most accurate forecast any contractor can ever give. I just needed to know if I was on his list so I didn’t have to go with the other, more expensive tree service, even if I really could have used that back massage. After I left the voicemail, the cheaper tree guy emailed me back to confirm that he would, in fact, show up at some point. Tree guys, like wizards, are never early or late, but always arrive exactly when they intend. I settled in to wait, potentially for the rest of my life.

Then the tree guy sent me a second email right after the first. That was totally unexpected. He said his crew would be out the next day. The weather was supposed to be warm and sunny, which are perfect conditions for tree killing. I eagerly agreed to his terms. The next morning, we got an inch of snow, which is apparently less than ideal for going up in a cherry picker with a chainsaw. All logging activities were off. The tree guy said he didn’t know when he could try again. I settled back in to wait forever.

Twenty-four hours later, his entire crew showed up. I couldn’t have been more shocked. It’s the fastest anyone I’ve hired has ever appeared for anything. Apparently they agreed that my two almost-dead trees needed to die the rest of the way as soon as possible. I exchanged, like, two words with the foreman before he and his team got to work. It amazed me that, based on a few emails with no money yet changing hands, a team of eight men with huge trucks and dangerous tools would show up and obliterate two sixty-foot tall trees that had been in place for at least half a century. It seems like there should have been more checks and balances than that. The guys worked tirelessly and loudly from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.. I was nervous because I had to lock my animals in the house the whole time, which left us in a precarious bathroom situation. The backyard is their toilet, and I didn’t want them to use my carpet in its place. Still, I also didn’t want them to get crushed or accidentally cut in half, so going outside wasn’t an option. The animals would just have to hold it. It turned out I was worried over nothing. The pigs slept through the entire process, and the dog didn’t even notice that anyone was in the backyard. I’m now less than optimistic that he would alert us in the case of an actual intruder. You could put my entire house on wheels and cart it away and he wouldn’t even bark.

In the space of one business day, both trees completely disappeared. The tree crew vanished just as fast. It all seemed like a very expensive (and loud) fever dream. In their wake, the tree guys left two huge tree stumps and a yard that’s the cleanest it’s ever been. There’s not a single stick left. Not only that, but whatever machine they used to vacuum up the branches also sucked up an entire winter’s worth of pig poop that I hadn’t gotten around to scooping up yet. My laziness has never paid off so well. The tree job still isn’t technically done yet. The service needs to send out a different crew to grind down the stumps. Because of that, I can’t replant my grass since they’re just going to drive heavy equipment over the ground again. Still, it’s wild to me that I haven’t paid them anything yet. They didn’t ask for half up front or after they finished cutting down the trees, even though the total job is now more than 90 percent finished. If I fail to pay, it’s not like they can put the trees back up. It would take way too much super glue. Then again, I would never dream of skipping out on this particular bill, and they know it. Never stiff a team that owns an industrial wood chipper.

***

A huge thanks to all of you who came out to see me at Main Street Books Friday. One guy (Let’s call him “Nate” because that’s actually his name) drove three hours to see me. That’s a lot of pressure for me to perform, which is awkward since I’m not a performer. I write, which is definitely the world’s worst spectator activity. Still, it was a good time. I basically just hung out with readers for two hours. It helped that the other headliner, local cartoonist Dave Sattler, had enough interesting stories to fill half the time. Otherwise, I would have run out of things to say and had to resort to plan B, which is always to throw a ninja smoke bomb in run away. The key to being a successful author is to know how to vanish without a trace.

My visit to Main Street Books also gave me a chance to check on their literary stockpile. They have at least a few signed copies of everything I’ve ever written. They’re especially well stocked on The Chosen Twelve, so maybe buy one of those. They’ve moved hundreds and hundreds of them so far (The day I signed them all, the weight of the piles nearly broke the card table), but they’ve still got about sixty left. My pride is now tied up in not letting them get stuck with unsold inventory. If you aren’t familiar with the book, here’s a reader review:

Tina

5 Stars

Although this book is marketed for young adults it is also great for adults. It reminds me of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman in their fantasy work, but in the sci-fi genre. Great for children, great for adults. Witty and intelligent, The Chosen Twelve touches on deep existential concepts whilst the 22 (very old but apparently only) 12 year old children bicker, fight, plot or idle their way to a future colonization of a planet that only the digitals who control everything know anything about. It's unsure that the digitals actually do know anything but when the choice is do as you are told or die, the options for the organics is limited. The action moves well, and the concepts should get a child thinking. Actually, it should get adults thinking too, but I have less confidence in their openness. This book doesn't shy away from the hard choices, but makes sure you know how hard they really are. Highly recommended.

You can get the book here: A new adventure.

Be sure to pick Main Street Books at the link above if you want a signed copy.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Catch you next week.

James

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