I had an excellent front row seat, seeing a dedicated crew deliver a public service. The Newport City Parks Department’s hardworking expert tree team toiled in July’s scorching heat for hours in front of my house, caring for trees who had looked to me like they were dying. Big sections of the trees were riddled with shriveled wood. I had figured the trees were rotting with disease. Wrong. They just were in dire need of what amounts to a haircut. Deadwooding. It was amazing (and a little scary) to witness. I literally pulled up a seat (dragged a dining room chair out to the front porch) and sipped my coffee as I watched. The team of three cut down multiple dead branches from the two city-owned honey locusts. Jenna climbed in the bucket loader and swung it around, lopping off the wood with her saw. Charlie flung a rope up into the treetops to assist his climb up, reaching areas where the bucket loader couldn’t go. Fisher stood on the ground and spotted Charlie, dangling in the air from the rope. Once they amassed a giant pile of discards, they fed the mound into a super-fast wood chipper.
I enjoyed watching those amazing, dedicated people. And I wasn’t a bit surprised to learn in chatting with Fisher, that he just graduated from college and after his summer job ends, in the fall, he will begin studying to become a priest.
