Farm Fresh Blog

I stared in shocked amazement at the carnage before me, but like so many deaths I've stood over, I couldn't cry because I was in a police uniform and there is no crying in police work. I just stood there in the street, holding back a silent tear.

My office is in the city, a building surrounded by concrete. And along the building, in this paved barren landscape, stood four trees - until yesterday. I was told that it took only twenty minutes. In twenty minutes a truck rolled up, sawed down four trees, loaded them into a shredder, and then workers blew the debris away and continued down the street. It took them longer to block off the street than it took them to kill four trees.

Why?

I held back a tear as I stared at the pitiful empty stumps sticking out of the pavement.

"They're gonna widen the sidewalks and put in planters."

Really? Really! They are gonna put in giant concrete planters like we have on the other side of the building? Planters that are filled with weeds and the occasional cigarette butt? Those planters? They cut down four trees for THAT!!?

"No, they cut down 72 trees for that..."

Someone decided to go the entire length of downtown and cut ALL the trees so they could widen the already very wide sidewalk and create a nicer stroll for pedestrians.

I listened to this explanation and tried not to let the tear roll down my cheek. I've stood over dead humans with less emotion than I felt for those trees. When is enough enough? When does man in his infinite arrogance quit killing things to satisfy his fickle fancy for the moment?

Those big dreams for sidewalks and planter look fine on a storyboard, but the reality is that someone has to care for those planters. Someone has to put plants in there. And that someone always chooses annuals that must be watered often and replaced regularly. These plants float in a sea of concrete like a shipwrecked lifeboat floats in the ocean.

Seventy-two trees . . .

Seventy-two trees were probably chopped up yesterday to form the mulch for the spring potted plants the city will pay to have planted, and cared for, and ripped out and then replaced later with the next Home Depot season special.

I need to retire. I need to be in a place where the trees are older than me, where they and the rocks around them, look down on the struggles of man as he tries to eek a living from the land, with the land. I need to be there to protect the trees. There is a reason why I must own my land - because the land needs an advocate, a voice, someone who will stand up and defend it. The land needs people who will stand up and shout "NO! You will not cut down those trees to make room for whatever stupid idea of you've come up with today!"

It is easy for people to say that land should belong to the government so that it belongs "to the people," but I will take a firm stand and tell you that the moment you give control of land to the government, some pencil pusher sitting on an IKEA chair in a sea of concrete will look up from a painted storyboard drawing and give the order to cut down your trees to make room for people who will bring more money to the government. And the people who love those trees will stare at the pitiful stumps in the concrete and shake their heads.

The people will leave their offices to head to the bus stops, and they will stand around the stumps of these trees and ask why. They will look around and ask the police.

"What happened to the trees?"

And the police will be just as upset as everyone else. Some people will go to the city to demand answers, and they will be reminded that the trees belong to the government and the government can cut them down for "the good of the people," because tourists like wide sidewalks, and tourist bring money. And you can always buy more trees.
 

  To read the story of my own personal battle for the trees:

Read -

Ferngully

Saving Ferngully

Anne Frank Meets Dirty Harry

What We Have Here . . .

Chess Games

Battle Drums

The Good Fight