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Day 1: I wake to the heady pine scent of Christmas—the morning I’ve dreaded (backstory here).

Our trees are falling. Heartwood splinters like gunfire.

Out in the air-conditioned Forestry Bobcat with its whiz-bang red Masticator, the contractor we hired knocks over bug-ridden pines. Each living, still-photosynthesizing tree explodes. Detritus sprays 300 feet.

Goodbye, fairy-tale forest. Farewell, shadowy habitat for owls, deer, small furry critters. Our once-magical backyard seems doomed.

Our contractor follows another man wielding his chainsaw against the larger victims of pine bark beetles.

Their plan seems haphazard, the destruction acute.

I can hardly bear the new emptiness.

Absence hurts. [Read more…]