A big trim at last...

There had been young two trees, sycamore and ash, in a big garden many years ago.  Some decades ago the big garden was divided between these trees, and a new house was built on the ash tree side.  They grew every year and gave shade for the houses on the both side and rests for birds.

But their branches became overwhelming.  In the small town facing the Bristol Chanel it was often windy.  The trees became a nuisance; the branches fell down over the roofs when the storm came, the leaves in the autumn fell down on the roofs and stopped the rain drainages, their shades prevented other plants growing etc.....  The most dangerous possibility was that these trees fell down one day on the houses next to them.

The big trim was needed for them before they came back to life.  My neighbour decided to get rid of the whole tree on his side, sycamore.  We decided to keep our ash tree but with a lot of trimming.

Last week 4 tree service men came round in the morning.  It was so quick until the sycamore tree was cut into piece and disappear from my sight.  There were a lot of pieces of trunk and a big pile of small branches left on the ground.

They came to our tree around noon.  After only one and a half hour or so, our ash tree was drastically trimmed down.  It looks bleak and probably will stay not much different from now  this year, but will grow back to normal in a couple of years.

'We took care of your bird box', one of the tree men said to me.  I noticed in the next morning a pair of blue tit going to move in.  The spring has come!

It looks a bit bleak.

English Oak with leaves (2nd of 3: Tree&Leaves series, A5)

The first one of the trilogy was published on 11/2/2013.  (Turkey Oak)

Today, I'm going to upload the second one.  (The third one will be uploaded some time later.)  This is English Oak.  English oak is so common that it's seen everywhere in the UK.  The one I made this print stands on a small field in my town.  English oak can be quite massive, but this one, I would say, is middle-sized.  I liked the balanced form of its trunk.  Its branches were growing down almost onto the ground, but the thick trunk holds them strongly.

English Oak 2012

(Japanese vinyl relief, 2 rounds with 2 colours, A5)

Happy Easter!

It was sunny on the Easter Sunday yesterday.  We went for a walk in a woodland near by our town. The air was still cold although we felt warm in the sun.  The summer time has just started yesterday in the early morning.

We walked into a deciduous woodland, mainly of beech, where the sunshine came through the bare branches and it was sheltered from the cold wind.  When looking at the bare branches, we could see tiny buds awaiting the warmer days.

The young green leaves of English bluebells were coming out here and there.  Primrose scattered the pretty cream yellow spots in the woodland.  A bunch of wild strawberry had tiny tiny white flowers on a warm sunny slope.

  

It was a quiet Easter Sunday afternoon.  Only a few people with dogs passed by.  Trrrrrrr.  !  A woodpecker was drumming on a tree.  We could still see the hills under the crisp blue sky through the bare trees.