Buzz Saw Bliss — Sheltering at Home Day 3

Sheltering at Home Day 3, Thursday, March 19, 2020

It was loud. It was awful. It was irritating. It was the sound of a buzz saw echoing up and down the canyon.

And it was wonderful.

The frightful noise roused me from sleep. I headed downstairs to the kitchen. And there, out the window, I saw, by golly, a man in an orange shirt perched high, high in the Monterey pine that stood in the empty lot behind our house.

That sprawling thing had been blocking our mini-view of the San Francisco Bay for decades. And for years it had leaned ominously downhill, threatening to fall upon the roofs of my neighbors below. And now it was on its way to the shredder. Yes!

I love trees. The world needs them. But the sight of this particular top-heavy, dangerously tippy tree being taken down, limb by limb, made my day on Day 1. And again on Day 2. And again today, on Day 3 of the pandemic-induced isolation Jon and I and our neighbors are enduring.

Emails with a neighbor produced the news that Pacific Gas and Electric, was removing the tree, which maybe explains why the work was going on in spite of the county’s shelter at home orders.

Jon and I have been cooped up with nothing but newspapers, crossword puzzles, laptops and a TV tuned all the day long to dreadful coronavirus updates. But now something wonderful was happening to us: we were being gifted with a whole new outlook on the world from almost every room of our house.

I peered though the limbs of our own, beloved cypress tree. Where the branches of the bushy pine tree had been — was now a glistening San Francisco Bay. But what was that down on the water? Something bigger and more graceful than the low-slung freighters that usually ply the scrap of bay Jon and I see from our house. What was it?

Tomorrow: What it was.

More about our beloved cypress tree and my — normally — tender feelings toward trees at “Confessions of a Carnivore.” 

Below: When you’re cooped up in the house, and there’s big action in the canyon below, and your camera is handy — you shoot the action. Right? Notice that the tree fell sideways across the hill and not downhill toward the roofs of my neighbors. Also, don’t miss the guy behind the tree giving directions to the athletic man with the buzz saw.