They arrive in a pack, swooping into the complex one after the other in the early working portion of the morning. Pick up truck, roofed truck towing chopper, and open dump truck.
Consulting their list, they find the area and claim parking spaces.
Up into the tree he climbs, trailing the lines that will be looped, secured, and observed during his time above the ground.
Thump! Thump!
Grrrr! Grrr!
Limbs fall, trace a path of shedding leaves across the grass, as earth bound men saw them into bites and feed them to the ravenous chipper.
Leavy canopy shrinks, large bare arms become exposed to the sky. The cutter descends, shrinking the widening truck with each cut of his saw. Into the open truck they go. Firewood for sale?
All on the ground again, they attack a final time. Wipe out the trace, leave only a circle of straw to cover a bare spot where the stump has been into a shallow depression.
Neighborhood children will lack one of my memories. A large stump on the schoolgroud served us as “safe” in tag, viewpoint for prowling adults, and even a prop for at least one yearbook class photo.
