There is no point to this post other than to ventilate, and maybe some of you can commiserate -- many of you probably can.

You may or may not recall that I planted quite a few trees and taller shrubs down by the road and along the property line for more privacy. I live on a dirt road, but it's a major county dirt road and we get a fair share of traffic. And, of course, road dust.

Today the next-door neighbor cut down a large paper birch tree. In fairness, it wasn't that attractive of a tree (papers usually aren't, not in the landscape anyway), but the large canopy shielded the view of my home from that angle, and helped to keep down the road dust. Nothing I can do about it. I'm not mad -- it's their tree after all, it's just that because our parcels are long and narrow the neighbor's trees and shrubs help to hide the homes from view from an angle as the cars are driving down the road, and help shield from the road dust (as mine do for my neighbors).

I can't yet see how I can plant more trees on my own property to fill that hole because of the way the overhead wires are. I'll fully assess once they're done doing whatever they're doing out there (it's a long weekend...more trees might be on the docket to be felled IDK). Maybe I can figure something out. I suppose I could just ask them if they are going to plant a replacement tree or trees, that might be in their plan. I hope so.