The story started early last winter.  A truck had parked at the bottom of the driveway and the driver was out looking at our trees.  I put on my boots, hat and winter coat and went out to talk with him.  He introduced himself as an arborist from the power company.  He was inspecting trees along the power line and marking those to be trimmed back and those to be removed.  One birch tree would have to be trimmed severely on one side.  That was obvious.  The fellow that put this house here had wanted to start a nursery and had just dropped trees in place–temporarily.  He must have never looked up for power lines, never considered the size of the mature tree, or maybe his plan was to remove it in a few weeks or months.  He died of a massive heart attack.  Temporary became permanent.

A large weeping willow would have to go.  Okay, mixed feelings on that one.  The granddaughter had outgrown the tree swing, but I do like the lines of a weeping willow.  Sylvia would not miss the myriad branches that would litter the lawn.

Finally, one of ash trees from the double row of ash trees would have to go.  Then he dropped the bomb.  “You do know that these trees are infested with the emerald ash borer, don’t you?”  I didn’t, and asked how he knew.  He showed me in every tree the small round holes where the borer went in under the bark and then ate around the growth layer.  The trees would die.  I said, “Okay” and thanked him for the info.  He left.

A neighbor would cut the trees for firewood.  I wanted to get photos so before the neighbor finished cutting trees, I went out to get a shot of those tiny holes.  This is what I found.

Strange!  It had been such a tiny hole–and perfectly round.  I went to the next tree and found this.

Too fresh and too big.  Do you know what caused this?  You’ve probably already guessed, and you’re probably right.

There was the explanation.  Right in front of me.  Unfortunately, the trees are still dying.