Back to lumberjacking! With a twinge of irony as draw down our stores of homegrown lumber (cured and stored in Rosslyn’s carriage barn), we’re once again compelled to cull a few mature ash trees that are dying back and threatening to tumble across our outbuildings. So — despite the fact that we’ve endeavored over the last year to use our lumber, indeed to reduce the inventory that has occupied too much barn space — we are once again felling trees that will become lumber, firewood, and mulch.
Although I’m not afraid to harvest a tree when circumstances warrant, it’s nevertheless a poignant passing and sentimental benchmark when towering trees that helped define Rosslyn’s environs over the years must be culled. But storm damage to several of Rosslyn’s oldest feature trees in recent years, combined with a perspective shifting meeting with our insurance estimator this past summer, compel us to undertake some selective tree removal of unhealthy / dying ash trees located too close to the carriage barn and icehouse for comfort