In the 21 years we’ve lived here we’ve lost a lot of our big, beautiful red oaks. They have been toppled by hurricanes, blown down by heavy winds and parched by heat. The first tree experts we called in were sensitive folk with college degrees and a calm, Zen-like manner. They didn’t so much diagnose our trees as they did feel their pain. More recently, we’ve hired daredevil cowboys who would as soon fell a tree as look at it. In other words, our attitude as tree owners has paralleled our evolution as parents. The longer we’ve been doing it, the more casual we’ve become.
Until now.
Something is killing our trees. We’ve lost five in the last two years, and hey, we don’t have an infinite number here. So yesterday another tree expert visited our house. What’s killing our trees, he said, is drought. Let the watering begin.