while leaving on my fuji bike (could've taken the honda but there was a report of possible thunderstorms later in the day, besides i wanted to get more bicycle time), i suddenly remembered the e-mail i got from the city of somerville about a tree cutting happening on beacon street and how a portion of the street would be closed to traffic for much of the day (7am to 4pm). before i even knew the address (354) i already knew which tree they were talking about: the large willow behind the rustica cafe. large is probably an understatement as it's probably the tallest tree in the neighborhood. it's also usual as there aren't very many willow trees around here, and that may even be the only one. willow trees are a liability as they tend to grow by the water and have shallow roots which are prone to toppling over. this particular tree sat in the middle of a densely packed neighborhood and was perhaps shielded from wind damage, which could explain how it could so large. but during that time i had grown tall enough so that it was easily 6 stories tall if not taller, surpassing the height of surrounding buildings. it might've been damaged from that microburst we had recently, and now was such a risk to surrounding buildings that it finally had to be removed. i went to check out the cutting and saw that'd only just began to remove the upper trunk. it reminded me of the time we had a tree cutting of our own in our neighborhood back in 2013. except we didn't have the super tall crane i saw them using today.
i had chicken noodle soup for lunch. later i went out in the backyard where my father had staked 4 poles in the backyard, potential spots for future trees. one of my concerns is the backyard neighbors might decide to plant trees of their own, potentially blocking precious sunshine from the trees we plan on planting. but they have smaller backyards and can't afford to make then even smaller my adding trees.
* sinus infection