What A Difference A Tree Makes

I trust you can see the giant tree towering over the orange tree.

That enormous tree, which had been growing as quickly as Jack's beanstalk is now history. I paid a neighbor to chop it down and take it away. Last year it wasn't all that big. I could easily hang out my laundry, which dried quickly, and it certainly wasn't taller than the orange tree then.

Suddenly, this year, as winter turned to spring, laundry didn't dry all that well, and that strange tree, which grew uninvited, began to take over the yard and barge into the orange tree. Before Passover, even though I was sick with COVID, I could see that it had to go before it strangled the orange tree.

Yes, it's Shmitta year, when we're supposed to give the fields and gardens a break. But when a non-fruitbearing tree endangers a fruit-bearing tree, it can be cut down.

Today my neighbor came over with his electric saw and got to work on the tree, which was actually two or maybe more like Siamese twins or a two-headed monster.

Within a few hours, they were gone, and I felt that I could breath. I hadn't realized how much that two-headed monster of a tree had taken over my yard. 

I immediately did a couple of loads of laundry and was amazed at how quickly things dried. Laundry hadn't been drying the past few months, and it wasn't because of winter. We've been in the house over 35 years, and laundry had always dried quickly, until this year. Apparently, the tree trapped in the humidity, dampness in the clothes. 

It's like having having cataract surgery... Suddenly I can see from my merpeset (terrace.)