The last couple of weeks my mornings have been greeted with the sound of chainsaws.  I don’t particularly like the sound of power tools, and chainsaws rank up there as one of the worst.

Now it is the sound of engines from dump trucks and excavators carving up the soil.  I look out my backyard and see the excavator swinging its massive claw.  There is that recognizable beeping sound that follows you into your home.  

This year alone, within 5 minutes of our house, three new developments have been built and a fourth, the installation of 27 new houses on land that used to have only one, is underway.

My neighborhood is changing, and I don’t like it.

[bctt tweet=”My neighborhood is changing, and I don’t like it.” username=”@antelopediaries”]

Behind our house, built 49 years ago, used to be one house on 1.25 acres with a row of trees.  When we bought our house two years ago, I accepted the new development that had replaced them.  But I wasn’t ready for another developer to buy the lot next door, which also had one house on it, and cut all the trees from that property.  And by all the trees, I mean ALL of them.

I can be pretty tenacious at times, but watching those trees fall left me feeling helpless, like that feeling you get when something hits your conscience and you can’t do anything about it.

Most of my life I’ve lived in cities.  If anything was demolished, it was one building for another.  The felling of a tree is more painful to watch.  I never saw one in real life before I moved here.

I know the process now.  First they cut down all the branches.  A lumberjack clears the way as he climbs up the tree.  Another person below him carries the branches to a wood chipper.  By the time the lumberjack gets to the top, the majestic evergreen has been reduced to a naked pole.  As the lumberjack climbs down he cuts the trunk in segments.  Once on the ground, the trunks are cut into 18″ rounds which the homeowner can either keep or pay to be hauled away.

It’s that simple.

But if there is enough room for a tree to fall, as in the 27 house development behind us, they go right for the jugular.  The mature tree is no match for the younger, dead but powerful chainsaw.  The claw of an excavator leans against the trunk to help it fall in the desired direction.  Just before the tree falls, it looks like it’s reaching for the sky one last time before, in seemingly slow motion, it crashes to the ground.  Then the excavator grasps the trunk with its chubby claws and deposits it on a mound that is taller than the two story houses next door.

Just before the tree falls, it looks like it’s reaching for the sky one last time before, in seemingly slow motion, it crashes to the ground.

What took several decades to grow is removed in less than an hour.

I was one of the few people that took time to look at the trees as their lives were cut short.  Another neighbor of mine, in the new development behind us, went about working in his garage, apparently immune to the piercing sounds.  I happened to be in my yard when he did come out and look behind him.  He put his hands on his head.

His “new” development isn’t the new kid on the block anymore.

When everything was cut, another machine came in and minced the trees.  It looked like my great grandmother’s meat grinder, except on a much larger scale.  It created mounds of wood chips taller than our house.  I’ll never look at wood chips the same way again.  It’s like looking behind the scenes of a sausage processing plant.  Look at the evergreens in the background and the wood chips in front of them.  Is it really the same tree?  Is sausage really a pig?

And next door to that they are building a behemoth of a school with fiery red siding that is visible now that the trees are gone.  But I’m not worried.  Soon they’ll be replaced by windows looking down on us.  If we’re lucky, maybe the new homeowners will plant some trees.

Fifteen years ago, horses still galloped in our neighborhood.  Now, this beautiful landscape has almost completely been replaced with enormous boxy houses that almost touch one another.  In an architectural twist, the inside of the house feels expansive, but outside, it feels claustrophobic.

There is something ridiculous about building houses whose rooftops nearly touch one another.

There is something ridiculous about building houses whose rooftops nearly touch one another. #stoptheridiculousness pic.twitter.com/kRkb6kETkY

— The Antelope Diaries (@antelopediaries) July 20, 2016

This isn’t suburbia.  It’s claustrophobia.

When we moved here from Seattle two years ago, we met a couple who had lived in the neighborhood for nine years and was getting ready to move another 30 minutes north.  We thought our neighborhood was a paradise with so many trees.  They, on the other hand, said the development was too much for them.  Now I know what they’ve been going through the past nine years.  

Cramming more people into smaller spaces doesn’t build community.  People need enough space from one another to want to reach out to other people.  Cramming people like sardines makes them want to retreat into their homes.  No wonder the houses are so expansive while the front yard is almost extinct.

“Our” beautiful greenery is increasingly being replaced by windows- windows looking out onto a soulless environment.

If that wasn’t enough, last week my neighbor cut down a row of beautiful mature evergreens adjacent to our property because she saw them as “weeds” and didn’t want to deal with the needles on her roof.  Those trees were a major reason I wanted to buy this house.  I loved looking at the row of lush trees when I pulled into our driveway.

 

The irony is that the next day she took her RV to go camping, presumably to a place where there are a lot of trees.  The smell of fresh wood lingered even after they left.

I’m sure that there are people who will say we have enough trees, but it’s all a matter of perspective.

Within a mile from us there are two more developments going up.

My initial feelings of anger and helplessness have been replaced by resignation.  Developers do what they do to maximize profit.  The county approves permits because it’s more money in their coffers and they never have enough.  It’s a win-win situation and the “community” suffers.

Hell is other people.  Jean-Paul Sartre

In contrast to last summer, it has been cloudy and cool these last few weeks, as if the sky is also displeased about what is happening.

That’s my opinion- what’s yours?

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