When I bought my house in Motovun, there were two cypress trees in the garden under the terrace, which I had removed a bit more than a decade ago (“Two Cypresses,” December 16, 2004). In their place, a few laurel shrubs appeared, and I was quite happy with nature’s, as it were, compromise. The shrubs kept growing, though. By now, they have turned into real trees. Some of the laurel trees in the woods under my house are pretty tall, too. In fact, they are as tall as the acacias surrounding them, and so I decided to intervene one more time. Yesterday I cut down one tree, today I cut down another, and tomorrow I will cut down yet another. I used a ridiculously small ax, but it turned out to be perfectly sufficient for the task. In a month or two, the remaining stumps will turn into shrubs once again, but I will make sure that they do not grow into trees in the years to come. The ax is always on the ready. And so is good old nature, no doubt.

Addendum (March 31, 2016)

As it turned out, today I cut down five laurel trees rather than just one. They were so close to each other that I mistook them for a single tree. Two of them required the ax, but the remaining three were thin enough to be cut with large clippers. Anyhow, the laurel trees are gone from my garden after three days of toil. Phew! I assume that the ugly stumps will become invisible in a few months. New shoots will envelop them. From now on, I will have to trim the laurel shrubs every few years. Otherwise, there will be more toil ahead. And I am not getting any younger…