You May Be Ahead Of Me Here
So I shall try shifting tracks in order to throw you off the scent, as it's a bit irksome if your audience are cleverer than you are. Art!
Hay Pesto, the Tree of Knowledge, more mouthfully known as 'The Tree Of Knowledge Of Good And Evil', one dendron paired with the Tree Of Life in the Garden of Eden. God warned Adam and Eve 'Thou shalt not eat of it' which OF COURSE meant they just had to try a nibble at one of the apples, since nothing tempts like forbidden fruit. Then they were gifted with the knowledge of Good and Evil, although the opportunities to practice either in the great outdoors when there's only two of you must be limited. Thus they were banished from Eden, having to learn animal husbandry and the three-field system, also double-entry book-keeping.
ANYWAY I am indebted to my 'Brewer's' for a whole lot of fabled information about different species of trees. Art!
That's an Ash tree, supposedly benign and a healer. Not if you've read the M. R. James ghost story about an ash tree, which I won't go into lest you get the squitters. Art!
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| 'Benign' my hairy hindquarters! |
Then there's the Birch, allegedly able to protect babies from fairies yet not schoolboys from hostile masters. Or the Elder, that guards against disease and cures it. Call me a cynic but I think I'd prefer a GP to a tree, even if it is hard to get an appointment. Art!
In contrition, Conrad has to admit that Elderflower Cordial is jolly nice stuff but wouldn't it be cheaper if they sold it in plastic bottles? Just a worldly thought.
I could go on, and probably will, but we need to more on to the second part of today's title rather than listing fifteen hundred species of trees and their mythical qualities, such as the exquisitely dangerous Bottle 'o Beer Tree, that needs to be drained daily.
So! Who needs to know all about trees? Lawyers, attorneys and solicitors, that's who, because trees are extremely Dog Buns! expensive to replace when felled in error, spite or greed. We've gone over many cases of Tree Law on the blog, which has still not exhausted the subject, since Hom. Sap. are always falling foul of it. Art!
The sardonic, if not saturnine, Devin Stone, who runs the 'Legal Eagle' Youtube channel and who manages to make case law entertaining and amusing. He brought up 3 'Tree law' cases recently, one of which we covered in great depth thanks to it being resolved. What 'Tree law' afficionados fail to mention is that their cases often take years to get resolved; one on Youtube I read last week took SIX YEARS to arrive at a trial and verdict.
Let us now move onto Devin's second case, involving a friend of his channel: Philip DeFranco, whom has his own Youtube channel. Phil and wife Linzi moved back to Georgia in 2024 from California, buying a property with an enormous array of woodland on their side of the boundary line, thanks to a previous owner buying up an adjacent lot for privacy purposes. Art!
Phil and sproglets enjoying brekker undisturbed by anyone else. Definitely 'Before'.
Their neighbour, Dr. Leo Eliezer, had a retention pond that he wanted to fill in, whatever one of those is. Hang on - Art!
It retains water, such as rainwater, and releases it slowly into river systems, trapping heavier pollutants in the sediment.
The bad Doctor approached the DeFrancos, saying that he wanted to remove 'a couple' of trees on their property for this home renovation project, that he would mark and indicate which were to go, and would notify them before anything was felled.
A year passed with nothing happening. Then, suddenly in November 2025 -
THE TREES WERE ALL GONE! He lied. There was no communication, just a mass felling of lumber, with the stumps also being removed, which is quite a job. Art!
Most definitely the 'After' shot. Linz took up the legal cudgels on this one, as presumably Phil has a full-time legal job and wished to avoid a busman's holiday. Her Tik Tok - whatever that is - video got 3 million views and a flood of people chorusing 'TREE LAW! TREE LAW!' and pushing for at least nuking the bad Doctor.
Linz went the approved non-nuclear route, consulting an arborist, who came out and assessed that 178 trees had been removed, which would cost - sit down here before your knees weaken - $237,000 to replace. On top of which there would need to be another $263,000 for landscape and ecology remediation. A cool half-million dollars in total. This is why Tree Law can get verrrry costly. Art!
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| Linz lawyering up |
The DeFrancos - I like to put the plural there to indicate that Phil is providing moral support and beer-drinking services whilst the suit is ongoing - are also getting a professional surveyor to mark out the boundary lines to determine exactly where there land is and isn't. Not as satisfying a nuking your neighbour but it counts for more in the legal long term.
I am going to call a halt here as there are more juicy details to deliver, and also Devin weighs in with a legal perspective on what happened. Be advised that this is 9 months after the event and don't expect any resolution until probably this time next year.
October In Switzerland
Hmmmm to judge from what you see, this month is a lot more pleasant than the grey foggy soggy boggy melange of melancholia we here in This Sceptred Isle have to cope with. Art!
Ami from 'Flavour Trip' disporting in a short skirt and sleeveless top, meaning temperatures aren't too low. Surprisingly enough when situated next to a racing river up in the foothills of the mountains. Berne, we are told. I rather wonder if they didn't record it a few months earlier and release it later.
ANYWAY being used as background music.
In Complete Contrast
Conrad is still looking at the list of post-apocalyptic novels from the website that began by looking at those similar to 'Greybeard', the novel by Brian Aldiss. Art!
Well, I recognised the next one on their list. Art!
The title is Latin for 'God of Wrath' and the deity invoked in this novel brings about World War Three and the destruction of nearly all civilisation. It's actually a collaboration with Roger Zelazny, that both authors wrote intermittently over at least seven years, and one day Conrad might sit down and work out who wrote what. Yes, there's probably a website that already analysed it, but where's the fun in that? Caution, deals with religious philosophy quite as much as rogue robots and hyper-intelligent rats.
Edited to add: there are 10 entries per page and I just spotted this at the bottom - Art!
Whilst On The Subject Of Books
I was even badder and ordered another book from Abebooks this morning. Art!
Since brewing my ginger beer has been so simple and rewarding. I did have a glass of the 'light' bottle yesteryon as it was my birthday, and look forward to the other 3 bottles once the dry season ends 28/08/2026. Art!
I have vague memories of trying homebrewing a good forty years ago and cannot remember anything except you need a hydrometer to measure proof.
Ask A Leading Question
Of late, the media re now full of stories and pictures of Natalie Harp, Donnie Dorko's shadow who seems to have suddenly moved into the limelight. Art!
Someone's had their Weetabix
Her nickname is 'The Human Printer' because - she prints things? Officially she's a 'Special Assistant and Executive Assistant' to him, so one presumes she types out his Truths, as he was barely literate before his brain transubstantiated (I encountered that one in my 'Collins Concise' this morning) into mashed potato.
The counterpoint to Natty, of course - obviously! - is asked by 'The Guardian'.
Hiding!
Sweepstake on when the divorce occurs, anyone?
