The almond tree in my garden was kind of an accident. I didn’t plant it there. But when it grew, I let it grow. For many years, it shaded the back of the house just outside the bathroom window. Eventually, the tree outgrew itself and began pulling the fence down. It grew to fifteen meters in height, towering over the house, and dropping wild almonds and leaves on the garden constantly. The day came when I decided it was time for it to come down. I had five trees ready to replace the one I was removing, so my ecological conscience was clear.
Finding a crew to cut it was a different story. Asking around town, I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to climb fifteen meters up a tree trunk to bring it down. I had three stipulations: Don’t damage the purple banana tree or the noni tree, don’t damage the fence, and clean up after yourselves. I thought that was fair and I was willing to pay the crew for the work. Even so, finding people to cut down the tree proved challenging. It went on for several weeks, asking around and finding no one. Then, coming out of the store one morning, Andres Saldarriaga called me over. He’d heard about the almond tree. They’d come and take a look at it.
Two days later, the Saldarriaga brothers were on my doorstep. They could bring it down. They’d protect the trees underneath, avoid the fence, and clean up the mess. The following day, they showed up with nothing but a machete and a long rope in hand. We had agreed that the branches would be lowered with a rope and tossed over the fence in a green waste pile that would eventually decompose into compost. They took turns climbing to the top and bringing down branches one by one. Using a machete, they chopped off all the canopy and successfully avoided damaging the trees and the fence.
At one point, another brother turned up to deliver a chainsaw. Once all the branches were down, it was time to bring down the trunk. The top two sections were brought down with one of the brothers balancing on the stumps of the branches. There were no safety harnesses and no helmets. Two wore gumboots on their feet and one wore crocs. They seemed unconcerned about their safety. Leaping around in the tree as if they belonged up there, they made short work of half the job in no time.
At one point, when there were no branch stumps to hang onto, one of the brothers tied himself to the tree trunk. The chainsaw was started up and tied to a rope, then the guy pulled it up and swung the chainsaw at the tree to bring down another section of the trunk. I was in the bathroom window at this point, taking photos and videos of the tree removal. The long section of trunk slipped out of its holding rope and landed “splat” on the fence. Bricks flew everywhere. “Noooooooooooooooo!!!” I screamed from the window and slapped both my hands over my face. I didn’t see the trunk bounce off the fence and land “splat” on top of the banana tree which was now flattened under the pile of bricks that had landed on it nanoseconds before. “Oh, no!” I heard from below. They got two out of three… the fence and the banana tree. In good news, the noni tree was fine.
“Breathe! We’ll fix it!” they assured me, and continued the removal of the tree, discarding the branches over the fence, trimming the branch stumps off the trunks so I could use them for the garden borders, and piling up all the bricks neatly to one side. Once the tree was finally down, everyone needed a break. They would go home and have lunch, collect all the materials and tools they’d need to repair the fence, and then come back to continue working. It was while we were discussing this that I turned to go inside and sprained my ankle. The bitter irony of watching three men leap around in a tree all morning with zero safety gear and without so much as a scratch, and I was the one who ended up in ice packs and bandages.
The brothers returned in the afternoon to repair the brick fence, as promised. They also cemented the shower back onto the wall where the tree had pushed it apart and used the last of their mortar to fill in another gap in the fence in the corner where a drooping soursop tree had caused some damage to the brickwork. They did a great job, despite the fact that they broke the fence and killed the purple banana tree. A short time later, a volunteer showed up for a work exchange and began the real clean-up and garden renovation. He lined the garden border with the almond tree trunk, dug out some drainage, and gave it a real raking. Now, there are a few potted trees in there getting more sun and rain. Although we haven’t planted too much in that space yet, it’s being prepared for great things, even as I write.