Wednesday 24 July 2019

They Took All the Trees


We used to have this view from the living room window in our Welsh hillside home.

It is, as they say, a view to die for and a real feature of our home.  Views from every window, the countryside lush and green or stark and white in Winter.  A view to drink in, one that stops you in your tracks.



I used to imagine the thousands of lives going on in the branches of the trees and bushes that lined the railway line.  I watched in the dusk of the evening as a white owl used to swoop across the field diving low to pick up some small creature trying desperately to run for cover.  The sheep would lie in the cooling shade offered by the trees and forage for tasty bits to supplement their grassy diet.

Beyond the trees and bushes I would see glimpses as trains travelled down the track and each morning and each evening I would see the same small group of water birds flying down and then up the river.  

It's always the way that when you leave somewhere and come back to it at a later date you notice more than if you are there day in day out.


But I didn't expect to come back to this.

Last time I was here ... only just over a week ago ... they were busy thinning out the trees along the train track, some big wig has obviously decided they might as well go the whole hog and remove virtually all the trees and bushes.

Now the trains whizz by noisily, there are fewer birds .... they have nothing to land on, my mind can't wander to the possibility of baby birds in nests and thousands of insects and small creatures making a life for themselves in their woodland homes ... they are all gone.


No wonder then that this song has been playing out in my head since the moment I first took in our new non-improved view.


Sue xx


31 comments:

  1. It's still a pleasant view but, oh, those trees. It's so terribly sad.
    xx

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    1. It's really sad, and after being kept awake for hours last night with the railway maintenance vehicle going noisily up and down the track and tooting to warn the workers on foot of it's approach every 15 minutes or so, I hate my 'new view' even more!!

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  2. It is tragic... we live in a Desert and whenever they fell a very Ancient Tree here it is indeed a Big Deal, we have so few!

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    1. It really is tragic, a good word to describe it. I have a passion for trees, they stand through so much, do so much for us and are just beautiful.

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  3. Where I live,at the top of the road used to be a huge field,with hedges,bushes,trees,where all the wildlife used to live.It was a beautiful area,where kids could play,we could take a picnic,they held a massive fete there in the summer and there was a pathway through the middle where people could cut through to the local shop and have a natter on the way.Local kids had football matches there on a Sunday morning and you could here a cheer go up from the spectators when a goal was scored.The hot air balloons sometimes landed there as well and every one would rush out their houses to watch them.The foxes and their cubs lived there.....Now it is just one big housing estate,with 3 more years work to go on it.Every piece of what we called Green belt, has now gone to houses being built.Just hope that they dont do that where you live.Your view was lovely.Why cant they just leave things alone!,xx

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    1. So sad for you.

      Not all progress is good progress, sometimes we need to leave things alone. With so many empty and ugly sites to choose from choosing to build on green belt is very upsetting.

      They can't build on the land opposite us as it is prone to regular flooding and we live in an AONB, and right on the edge of the National Park.

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  4. My brother in law lives in South Wales and they've done a lot of culling of trees and banks due to Japanese knotweed. Apparently the railways introduced it not realising it was such a thug.

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    1. We don't have Japanese Knotweed in this area that I know of, but we do have Himalayan Balsam ... which will only become more of a problem now that the native ground cover plants and trees have been removed and it will have free reign to self-seed everywhere.

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  5. Whenever there's a grant available round here, farmers cut huge swathes of hedgerows back to base - all that loss of habitat overnight. Hate to see it, but it happens regularly. That said - the area beside one of our lanes which was hacked back in the most dreadfully unskilled way (cheapest bod available I don't doubt) has grown back with new growth and the wild flowers are looking lovely. As someone who gardens for wildlife here, I hate to see this rape of the countryside.

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    1. Oh to go go back to smaller fields, with hedgerows and verges full of wild flowers.

      I hate seeing hacked hedges, we are very lucky that the guy that trims ours once a year does it with care. He goes backwards and forwards shaping it nicely. And it costs us nothing as we get this in return for providing grazing for Will's sheep.

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  6. We have to have major tree work in our garden every 7-8 years. It's Wales. Things will grow back!

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    1. The ancient trees will not, they have been lifted out root and all. The machinery along the train track is massive. the sort you usually see working in the forests. They lift the hundred year old trees out as though they were saplings.

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  7. A similar thing has happened up my way. So sad. They (I think Network Rail) have just sawn every tree down near the train line - not even took the logs away - just left there. All this as well in what I thought was the protected period when I thought it was illegal (Countryside Act) to disturb nests, etc.

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    1. At first they were just sawing down the trees and logging them, and Alan was given some of the logs and builders bags of the chippings for our use, as he knows the guys doing it. Then some other order was issued and a bigger company brought in, they turned up with bigger machinery and decimated the swathe of land all along the track.

      This line has only just re-opened after the massive damage done further down the track with the last lot of flooding, so I guess they are having a full on maintenance session to try and avoid any costly problems in the future.

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  8. That's so sad Sue - I love trees and definitely loved your view before they took them away much better. It's so very true in life, you don't know what you have got until it has gone. I don't think I would ever have thought of that song again. I really enjoyed it.

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    1. The song started playing itself out in my head the second I saw our new view. I guess I should be grateful it's NOT a parking lot!!!

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  9. I hope there was a good reason for this vandalism of nature, trees are life, they put so much effort into growing, they give in so many ways it's so sad, just like our relationships I suppose, the only consolation being in both cases that new seeds can be sown even though the location may change and then the reason for being continues.

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  10. What a terrible shame!!

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  11. I find this so very upsetting, everything is being taken away from the birds, bees, insects and wildlife, that is why I will always provide them with sanctuary in our garden.
    By the way I have got the new blog I was on about up and running already, we are really going to get on with it now and get the real simple life we crave, If you pop over to my blog you will see a link to the new one.

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    1. It's really upsetting.

      I'll pop over and have a look,and then add it to my sidebar so I don't forget to visit regularly :-)

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  12. It will take years to get that view back, if ever.

    God bless.

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    1. Exactly ... and I've just had a thought, if the field flooded so badly before ... the next time it floods it will be so much worse with nothing there to drink up all the water and help it drain properly.

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  13. Cutting down trees unnecessarily should be a criminal offense .
    Probably done so they don't have to pay out for cancellations when there are "leaves on the line"!

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  14. What a shock and a terrible shame Sue. Nothing is safe is it?

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  15. I understand your feelings. Our new neighbours moved in and built three enormous outbuildings which now obscure our previously uninterrupted view of fields, trees and sea. Such a shame but nothing to be done about it.

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  16. Oh Sue I feel your pain and sadness:( The small pockets around here where kangaroos, wallabies and koalas live have be been destroyed in recent months to make a large industrial estate:( Big Yellow Taxi is played regularly on the radio station I listen to, love the clip♥ Linda xx

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  17. Heartbreaking. Some plonker, somewhere, will have done a "desktop assessment" and concluded that removing living, breathing, (maybe even sentient?) creatures is the way to go. They probably justify such vandalism by spouting crap like "forward planning to minimise and mitigate potential future health & safety and maintenance issues.

    I had the same Joni Mitchell ear-worm going this week with someone on Skye experiencing something very similar 👹

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  18. How awful, what were they thinking! I felt terrible when we got rid of our apple tree (a canker ridden dying tree) 5 years ago, but we planted a cherry tree in another part of the garden and it's so lovely to see the birds using that one now. Have the railway got any plans to re-plant?

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  19. That was a beautiful window view. I too, would be heartbroken. I love trees and mature landscaping.

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