A missed opportunity

I could have had a good quantity of cherry — free! — if I’d only known about it in advance.

Sally and I were walking the neighborhood this past week and went by a home where the owners were getting rid of some cherry trees. They had hired a tree service, and at the point we walked by, they had already been downed and the logs cut into short sections.

The logs looked good — no disease or imperfections that I could see – so I asked the owners why. The answer was that they just didn’t like the trees. Some of the branches were overhanging their roof, the dropped berries were constantly staining their shingles, deck and walkways, and they simply wanted to get more sunlight onto their property. That last is understandable, I suppose, as we live in a very wooded area.

The saddest part was that the tree service wasn’t taking the logs, but rather just ”chunking and chipping” them, and then taking everything to a landfill. It’s enough to make a grown man cry!

Had I known earlier, I could have made arrangements with the homeowner, instructed the tree guy not to cut them into such short sections, enlisted a friend with a truck (and stronger, younger muscles) to help me get them, and then take them to a local place I know to have them milled. They only cost to me would have been the milling, and some gas money and a case of beer for my friend.

The real kicker is that I actively need a bunch of cherry right now. Sure, if I’d had a chance to grab all this particular cherry it would have been ages before it was dry enough to actually work, but missing out stings all the more.