Covid Chronicles. Chapter 65: Silver Maple Long Goodbye

Read chapter 64 here

Photos by Retiring GUy

August 2, 2020 

The slow-motion transformation of our back yard is certainly a fitting accompaniment to Life During Coronavirus. When so many options have been taken off the table – American Players Theater, hanging out with friends at the Memorial Union Terrace, Friday nights at the Capital Brewery beer garden, a Brewers game at Miller American Family Park -- who can work up any sense of urgency. I certainly can’t. And, apparently, neither can our tree and lawn service guy, Dennis Harrington. After rotting silver maple tree was reduced to an 8-foot stump on June 26th, we waited nearly a month for his crew to return to reduce it to grinder specifications. 

Not that I was complaining. 

“Hey, he can take all the time he wants. It only delays our getting the bill,” I repeatedly stated. 

Once the stump had been reduced to bits and pieces, we had a big pile of mulch to admire. It probably contained more cubic yards that what we’ve spread over the front and back during the past years, at least. It sat there baking in an oppressive heat last weekend, but when cooler weather rolled in on Monday, I decided to put some of it to use. It’s certainly not top-grade mulch, a mixture of wood chips and dirt, but I found it perfectly adequate for some out-of-the-way locations. The southeast corner of our lot, for example, is obscured by our vegetable garden and a row of weigela bushes. When a storage shed was still standing here, we used the back of it as a dumping ground for excess soil and occasional bucketsful of yard waste. (A fence and a variety of greenery on both sides obscured any unsightliness. And still does, for that matter.) To this day, the area tends to get weedy and therefore receives its fair share of mulch each spring. Some of the remains of our silver maple served as a summertime frosting on the cake. Quite the thick layer of frosting. 

I also added a line of mulch along the fence that runs the length of our south property line, an ongoing and so eternally futile effort to keep the creeping charlie from our neighbor’s yard at bay. Another big load was dumped on a small, grassless section of hard-as-cement ground leading to the doors of our Rubbermaid plastic shed, which provides some cushion to this short pathway. 

This week we also cut down most of the ferns in the back yard, which were going to be toast well before Labor Day anyway. I even started to dig up some of the extensive root systems. As a result, the area along the bedroom side of the house facing the back yard looks denuded. 

It’s not as though we are working our way through an unanticipated misfortune. As I previously mentioned, the silver maple we recently lost was a source of occasional anxiety ever since the summer of 2012, when our other backyard tree crashed onto the roof of our wooden shed, its branches sprawled over much of our neighbor’s yard. Dennis’s crew removed the “fat” from our centerpiece tree, but not enough to eliminate a sense of menace I experienced during storms and high winds. Which is ironic since both trees dropped giant branches at a time when there was no wind, no rain. Both trees needed no assistance from the elements in their demise. 

We quickly became accustomed to the loss of a tree in 2012, but this time around, the current hole in the ground serves as a metaphor for our loss of such a majestic presence in our back yard.

Read chapter 66 here