Tree Wars

Our trees hate us.

It’s been abundantly clear since we moved to Stamford back in May. Almost from Day One, they’ve kept up a constant barrage, pelting us with all manner of arboreal ammunition.

First it was these sticky, sappy, pink blossoms that adhered to everything, like nature’s Post-it Notes.  When that didn’t drive us away, they tried tiny arrows.  These were needles with a barklike substance on one end and an extremely sharp point on the other; we could have picked them up and inserted them directly into cocktail franks. 

When those didn’t work, they brought out the heavy artillery: golf ball-sized nuts aimed at our heads.  The velocity of these projectiles seems to be greater than what could be explained by gravity alone.  I could only think that the trees were somehow throwing them at us.

Then they brought in a non-tree mercenary, someone named Irene, who helped them dismember themselves so they could litter our lawn and driveway with their limbs, plaster the front of our house with their leaves, and cut us off from the world by committing kamikazee attacks on our power lines.  They repeated this attack around Halloween, only this time, they were disguised...as winter!

And don’t get me started on their attempts to bury us alive with their sheddings.  Oh, they looked colorful and benign, but soon there were mounds and mounds of them, building up behind me even as I raked the ones in front of me.  And because of some bizarre local custom, I was not supposed to bag them as I had seen done in Westchester, but rather, take them prisoner in roadside piles like a sort of Leaf Guantanamo, except without the vigilant guards, so they escaped at the slightest breeze.

I don’t know why the trees on our property dislike us so much.  Perhaps they miss the previous owners.  Or maybe, when the house was originally built, some particularly beloved family members were sacrificed.  If that’s the case, I’m truly sorry, but, come on, guys, you can’t blame us.  That was over 50 years ago!

Whatever the source of their animosity, we need to figure out how to placate them because, frankly, they scare us.  They’re so much bigger than we are, and they tower over us and our house.  A cheery, confident sort of person might point out the cool shade they provide.  My kind of person tends to think that he is living in their shadows.

But wait!  Maybe we can fight back.  I have before me right now a recommended list of "tree work" provided by our landscaper.  It includes:

• Raising the canopies of the hickory and birch.
• Pruning out the tulip tree (the source of the pink sticky things) and oak.
• Removing two or three dead hemlocks on the left of driveway.

Of course, I have no idea which tree is which, but I bet a little "tree work" will show those bark-covered bastards who’s boss.

"You wanna drop toothpicks on us?" I say.  "How’d you like your canopies raised?" 

"You throwing nuts at us?" I taunt.  "Watch what we do to your hemlock friends!" 

And, by the way, wasn’t Shakespeare always using hemlock to poison people?  What’s that doing on our property in the first place?  They're going to poison us, aren't they?

For more on our adventures as first-time homeowners at age 57, and moving to Stamford, visit http://theupsizers.wordpress.com/