Men in Trees

I have a very large gum tree in front of my house. It's the biggest tree in the street, and I do love it. In spring it's always filled with rainbow lorikeets, feasting on the red blossoms, and chittering with delight, and there's a possum who lives there, too.

But gum trees are notorious for dropping branches without warning, and each time we have a storm or a big wind, I've worried that the branch that overhangs the house might fall on it.

Yesterday I had a tree man come to talk about removing a fig tree from the back garden. Don't get me wrong — I adore figs and if this tree ever produced an edible fig it'd be the most pampered tree in the garden, but it doesn't. The figs are always dry and inedible, so I've finally given up on it and it's being removed right this minute.

Anyway I asked the tree man about the gum tree — I was worried he'd say the best thing was to chip it down, but he said "Yep, we can prune back the overhanging branches and it'll be fine." So yay, I have a bad fig tree gone, and a newly pruned gum tree, so the lorikeets will stay happy and the possum will still have a home.

And if you ask me, tree men are heroes.