Scene of tree being felled. Growl of saw, fountain of wood chips, creak of trunk as it begins to tilt, then swish and muffled crash as it topples into the brush. Sudden hole in the sky.

I stand looking up at the brilliant blue and then down at the fallen oak, and I am filled with a strange mixture of exhilaration and remorse.

The tree is gone, and with it go a hundred other things. A squirrel’s home. The living place of lichens. A resting branch for owls, for crows, for chickadees. A winter haven for a colony of carpenter ants. A hunting ground for woodpeckers. Shade for a dozen mammal species. Moisture, in the form of respiration, for the shrubs and flowers and grasses that grow beneath its canopy.

A living filter that traps impurities from the air as the breeze moves the air across it

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