The Tree and The Gap

It must be more than 50 years since I last drove a tractor in ernest. It's not as easy as it might look - moving in one direction while the process you are executing is often happening behind you. Inevitably, I got into some scrapes: bogged down in waterlogged soil I failed to notice; digging the tractor in to axle depth trying to pull a plough that I has set too deep; driving into a telegraph pole in the middle of a field; plunging sideways into a deep brook (which could easily have killed me) - and so on

I have a degree of sympathy when things go wrong for others. It is only in the last few days that we have noticed that one of the four or five-year-old trees in the orchard has been knocked flat, its supporting stake broken off, its tree guard torn and mangled. The trunk is not broken, but many of its roots were snapped and it was lying entirely prone. We assume this happened when the orchard was mown while we were away in Wales. The gap to the old apple was not wide enough to manoeuvre through. No one has owned up; I'll mention it one day

Today I put in a new stake, hauled it upright, tied it in place and restored its protection from deer. I don't know if it will manage to put out new roots and recover, or if enough remain to keep it alive. It's a larch, so the needles will fall in autumn; next spring will reveal success or failure

The men who felled the famous sycamore have got 4 years. That's expensive retribution for society to exact; it's hard to imagine they will emerge better men. I might have preferred them to give back to the community some of what they took away by doing something more positive in their own time - planting trees springs to mind