Once upon a time, more than a year ago, the hydro company came through and marked a bunch of trees for trimming.

It had been a few months since the ice storm, and we had seen how hazardous the trees could be to our wires. Despite my desire to preserve our power, I admit preserving our trees was more important to me. The hydro company was willing to send someone to meet with me, so of course I took them up on that. We did a walkabout talking about what trees to keep and how much to cut.

My biggest concern was the pines along the road at the front of the property.

The suggestion was to “top” them–cutting off their tops. I was not in favour. I was equally opposed to option 2: cutting the branches off one side. I am willing to take the risk, cross my fingers and bank on the trees being far enough from the wires.

Hydro guy seemed willing to listen to me and adjust his plans. But I couldn’t be sure. The proof would be in the actual trimming.

Except the trimming didn’t happen. The orange Hs stayed on the trees, and the trees kept growing all through last year.

Hydro finally came through to do the cutting a few weeks ago.

The good news is the pines–and most of our other trees–stayed. Some lost a fair number of branches, but they still resemble trees.

The bad news is there’s a lot of brush lying around.

When I met with hydro guy, he said brush would be chipped on-site. Some was chipped, but a lot is still there.

The bigger logs we’ll pick up and use for firewood. But we’re going to have to do a bit of unexpected clean-up. Not ideal.

At the back of the property we have a hydro line that runs through the marsh about 20 feet back from the road. Hydro did a lot of cutting back there. We’re not going to bother cleaning up the wood and brush, but I would like to repair the wire fence, which hydro crushed.

So on the not so good side, we have some clean-up to do.

On the good side, we kept most of our trees. We have a bunch of new firewood. And we have less chance of losing power in the future.