The Tree Has Left the Building

April 6, 2013

On Saturday, a truck had blocked off the road right in front of our apartment building. Liz and I were driving home after doing errands, and we noticed some cones in the road – and on closer inspection, realized that the truck was trimming a lot of branches from nearby trees. Not wanting to risk any damage to our car, we parked around back.

A bit later on in the afternoon, I talked with my friend Dipti on the phone for a good while. Shortly after the call ended, Liz came up to me with a very serious look on her face. She said “I have some disturbing news.” And after that, she led me to our bedroom window.

Peering outside, this is what I saw:

The tree in our courtyard was gone! It had been chopped down and totally removed, in the short time I was on the phone! I was in the bedroom the whole time, and though I heard a lot of noise outside… I had no idea this was happening.

By the time I had looked out, the bulk of the work was done and these two guys were clearing out the last vestiges of the tree trunk.

I’ve scoured my archives, but as impossible as it seems… I have no good photograph of this tree! When it was in bloom, it was lovely and took over the entire courtyard. From our window, the branches and leaves would fill to the point where we couldn’t really see across the way.

I really wish I could track down a photo of this tree, and I’m kicking myself now for not appreciating it when it was around.

In my searches, I found this image from when we did a quick photoshoot for Liz in the courtyard.