Tree Trimming

 I live in an area with an unusual preponderance of beautiful California live oaks.

These tall evergreen trees provide a wealth of shade with branch after bushy branch of tiny, serrated leaves. Several of these oaks grow just off my front deck. One in particular is a beloved tree. It shades the deck and provides habitat for birds and acorns for the red squirrel that bops along my deck every now and then. 

    But when I first moved into this house, that same tree was a tangled mess blocking the view of the mountain from my bed. So I called a tree expert, my friend Chuck Dahl, who came, climbed, cut, and sawed until I had a beautifully shaped tree through which I could see Humpy Mountain from my bed.

    Ten years later, that tree's limbs were again blocking my view, and the limbs of other live oaks were cluttering the gutters with leaves. So I called Chuck again. The overhanging limbs were an obvious fix, but he went into my bedroom to see what I wanted there. He tucked his chin onto my bed, said, "Hm. I see," then went outside, geared up, and started climbing.

    For Chuck a tree is not an adversary to fight but a partner to dance with. In his heavy work boots, he dances up the tree en pointe.

 He bows horizontal to saw a limb. He pirouettes to a different position to use his chain saw on another one.

He manipulates a ten-foot pole to clip another one. He clips and saws and cuts; he hangs and swings and dances. If ballon refers to the smooth and elastic quality of the jumps performed in ballet, Chuck is a ballon-ist in a tree.

    When it was over, I had a beautifully shaped tree as well as an extended view from my bed. I had gutters unhindered by leaves. And I had wagonload after wagonload of branches to haul away.

Chuck went home, and I got to work.

    It didn't take long, though, and now, every morning when I wake up, I look out the window at the oak tree that danced with Chuck and beyond it to the music of the mountain I can see from my bed.