Indiantree Hill Gets A "Haircut"

The hilltop high-altitude haircut is finished.

Twenty-two of our tall trees - including our cherished Indian Tree - have been shortened, pruned and thinned, yes to give them better shape and strength but mainly to make them less vulnerable to the high winds that howl across Indiantree Hill when storms whip in out of the Southwest.

Riding an 85-foot-tall "Cherry Picker" and swinging from branch-to-branch on a rope looped over a higher limb, the Amish trim crew amassed more than an acre of trimmings, piled six feet high in places.

Now the trimmings have been reduced to wood chips and a stack of firewood, the squirrels have relocated to new living quarters and the woodpeckers are back to rapping on the old snag in the East tree line.

We relished breakfast on the front porch this morning, watching new patterns of dappled sunlight created by our "opened" trees