A Giant Hole In The Sky

Although this is intended to be primarily a video blog, there are going to be times when something needs to be said, and this is one of those times.

Last weekend, we cleared the empty lot. By this, I mean we killed all the really big, old Ponderosa Pines that sit where the new structures will be, and pretty much everthing that was in their way when they fell. It had to happen before anything else can, and it was the culmination of weeks and weeks of worry and anxiety and stress. It took me a long time to even come to grips with "removing" these trees, from an ethical and environmental standpoint. They have been here for so long (one was 48" diameter at the trunk - massive!) and I have always felt like I am their protector, when people have told us we need to cut down this one or that one, for aesthetic reasons. And not only that . . . they are ALIVE, and there is daily interaction. Pitch and pine cone bombs, and needles and protection from the wind and sun. And beauty.

And then, there was the stress of dealing with the contractors - evaluating bids (which were all over the board), trying to research and figure out who was reputable, how they were actually going to take down seven large trees without crushing any of ours or our neighbors' structures, and on and on and on. Lots of stuff to wake up in a cold sweat about in the middle of the night, which became a routine for me. I slept 3 or 4 hours a night for quite some time.

Finally it was time to either do it or not. We believe that adding a quality, environmentally responsible house to the landscape of this neighborhood is a good thing. A healthy future depends on a dense urban core, and we've alway felt a little weird about hoarding an empty lot worth of free space. A beautiful dedicated, shared, green space called Manito Park exists just down the street. We do wish that we didn't have to affect the canopy to build this house, but we're not all that interested in building a tree house.

It still makes me sad to watch, but it's okay.