No doubt... I am about to sound like a "bleeding heart...tree hugging...liberal... naked and dancing under the moon...hippie." BUT... I hate it when people chop down trees. Now. I can understand taking down a tree when it's dangerous. When it's old. When it's falling apart, or hit by lightening... or some such. I can even understand removing a tree if it's too close to your house... damaging your roof ... or whatever. And I know that being here in Potter County... which is essentially the tree capital of the world... I shouldn't mind if a few trees get chopped down...

But today I woke up to the sounds of chain saws and heavy duty trucks. And when I went outside, there were these guys in those buckets high atop in the branches of some neighborhood trees... and they were taking them down ... limb by limb. At the end of the day... they had completely decimated a huge locust tree of some variety... and 4 Norway pine trees. These were huge trees. Grandfather type trees. The kind you hang huge hammocks from and while away the summer. What possessed my neighbors to have them cut down... I will never understand. One of them was dead. OK. I can see taking that one. And one was definitely looking worse for the wear.... OK.. I sorta get that one. But 3 of those huge pine trees were simply gorgeous... and there was no need to have them removed. At least... not to my knowledge.

It breaks my heart. I literally got sick to my stomach. And so... after I had run some errands and done some chores... I went out and focused on taking some pictures of some of the trees around the neighborhood. Lovely trees that need to be remembered for their beauty and grace. Trees that shield us from the blistering heat in the summer... and reward us with artistic color in the fall...

*photos by Elaine A. Russell