Cripes, we're on our (...counts...) eighth ninth tenth forester. I feel sure there's another one or two in the 30 year back-story but can recall neither name nor face. Only one of these men [all men despite our best efforts to find another type] was an Ass: a bullying tree-hating power-tripper. There have been an equal number of tree-workers employed by the contractors we have paid. I guess therefore that we're paid-up supporters of a niche sector of the Irish economy.
I've always thought that they were underpaid: asking dozens rather than thousands of €€€s a day. Plumbers get wet; chippies bugger their knees; but tree-surgeons (even the most careful and competent) die. I was, therefore, kinda glad when two of my favorite tree-monkeys refused to help with my tree-anxieties after Storm Darragh and Storm Éowyn this last Winter. Both chaps had hung up their harness, lapsed their insurance, and got work on the ground. There are two ways to get to "there are no old tree-climbing foresters": one option being distinctly preferable.
I've been losing sleep over a Scot's pine Pinus sylvestris , right opposite our front gate, which looked like it had had its foundations shook by Storm Darragh and might fall on the adjacent shed at the first gust of the next Westerly storm. Forester#10, let's call him Conor, finally called back last Wednesday evening, saying he'd come by to have a look on his way home in . . . an hour. He came on time, drove a big Toyota pickup and had the widest Husqvarna-branded suspenders I ever did see. A wide smile and a crushing hand-shake boosted my confidence.
Conor was not particularly concerned about the looming Scots. His take was that oak Quercus robur, Scots Pinus sylvestris and ash Fraxinus excelsior had deep tap roots and were most unlikely to be ripped from the ground by any storm. They could shed top-hamper for sure, especially if there was ivy Hedera helix to provide extra windage. As we've experienced Monterey cypress = Mackie Cupressus macrocarpa; sceagh = hawthorn Crataegus monogyna; and rowan = mountain ash Sorbus aucuparia are classic for being untimely ripped from the earth-mother's womb by any stiff breeze. My anx alleviated, we've agreed to give that Scots another year: monitoring to check the progress of needle browning.
otoh, there are four (4) stonking gurt ash trees on the ditch between our micro-forest and the access road. They have been differently affected by ash die-back Hymenoscyphus fraxineus and the last one is perilous close to angry neighbour's sheds. I've been dithering about cutting a ring around the ivy until I got an opinion on whether climbing arborists thought it made the trunk easier or harder to climb. At least living ivy is firmly attached to the tree. Conor advised ivy-cutting at 6:30 pm. At 6:30 am next morning I was on that task and by 08:00 it was mission accomplished - handtools [loppers, saw, hatchet] only!
We've also identified a drop-zone in the nearest corner of the forest where they can rain down lumps of tree when the time comes.
The list of sleep disturbing tree issues is now a little shorter. It's not like we haven't been living in the midst of trees for 30 years. Which have been unsteadily falling over or shedding branches all that time. We've never had to buy firewood. But we lost more trees in the last Winter, than we've lost over the previous 25. When chaps are young, they know they're going to live forever so they don't worry about mortality [including doing bat-shit crazy things in/with cars, trampolines, quad-bikes, power-tools]. On some level, don't worry is extended to meteorological assaults resulting in property damage. I guess my tree-anx is increasing as the tide of old-man hormones turns. And hints of feistier weather as a result of climate change might be a factor also.
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