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Tuesday 6 September 2022

Tree Law Lore

NO!  This Is Nothing To Do With Treebeard

Or Ents, or Tolkein, but having those three LOTR words in there does allow me to include a bit of click-bait artwork <cackles and pulls ends of moustache> which, if that coal-eating sloven Art will get busy -


     What Your Humble Scribe refers to is a species of Reddit Youtube vlogs concerning trees, usually when some bottomwipe cuts them down without permission.  Hence Tree Law.  What's the Lore about it?  It usually features surveyors, arborists and tree-planting services, plus attorneys (for these tales are usually in South Canada), trials and LOTS OF MONEY.

     Trees are expensive things that you just take for granted.  There they are, growing and shedding leaves, providing shelter for birds and dropping branches in windy weather.  Let us set the scene for this one: Quercus Alba, the white oak.  Art!

Hmmm oaky but not very white

     The location Original Poster reported about was a small town outside Nashville.  He had two white oaks on his property, and an entitled neighbour who aspired to be a country and western singer, you know, along Johnny Cash lines.  AJC had built a big porch onto his house with chairs and a rocker and hanging lights and tables, the full monty.  He was offended by OP's white oaks because they cast shade on His Wonderful Porch around noon, and he wanted OP to cut them down.

     OP said no.  AJC offered to pay for them to be cut down.  OP still says no.

     You can guess what happened next.  One day OP comes home to find both trees cut down, and a letter in his mail box from AJC saying to expect a Venmo payment for $2,000*.  Art!

<wailing and sobbing in background>

     OP is both gobsmacked and furious.  He calls in a surveyor, who confirms that the trees were most definitely on his property.  He calls in an arborist.

     This is where things begin to get expensive.  The arborist explains some of the finer points of White Oaks, including that they cannot be re-planted in this neighbourhood, so they are gone for good.  They are also highly prized for their VERY EXPENSIVE lumber.  Given that they were 100 years old, the arborist estimates that $1,000 per year would be adequate compensation.

     Armed with this, OP looks up a hard-faced lawyer in Nashville.  AJC is caught dead to rights and is more akin to Aspiring Johnny Cashless since he has to pony up  $200,000 and attorney fees.

     Moral of the story: look up tree law before pick up chainsaw.

     Motley!  Make me a salad and use plenty of Branch Dressing.


More Pressing Matters

You ought to recall the sinister and unpleasant punishment of "Peine Forte Et Dure" that I described in ghoulish detail a few blogs ago, and I mentioned the case of Major George Strangeways, without further deliberation.

     Okay, so one John Fussel, an Attorney, was sitting in his office at Temple Bar, when he was shot dead between 21:00 and 22:00.  Before you yark on about gun crime in the UK, this was in 1658.  Art!

Temple Bar

     The prime suspect was Strangeways, because he had been violently opposed to Fussel marrying his sister, and had threatened to do him in**.  He was apprehended and made to touch the corpse of Fussel, on the belief that if he was the murderer, blood would flow from the victim's wounds.  This, of course - obviously! - did not happen.  Strangeways went back to Newgate Prison.

     A search for gunsmiths who had loaned out guns brought up one ex-officer, Thomson, who was out of the country.  Law being what it was at the time, his wife was locked up in his place, which brought him out of the woodwork quick smart.  He immediately informed the court that he had borrowed a carbine at the request of Strangeways, who wanted it to shoot deer.  He handed over the weapon, fully loaded, at 19:00 and was handed it back, discharged, at 22:00.

     The evidence against him notwithstanding, Strangeways refused to plead guilty or innocent, which is where the PFED comes in.  He was going to suffer this treatment for three days with only bread or water.  This punishment schedule was rather ambitious as he expired within nine minutes of being loaded up with rocks.  Art!


     No messing about in those days, hmmm?  As a punishment it was so rarely used that the court probably had no idea how long a person could withstand.


"The Sea Of Sand"

The Doctor, Albert and Professor Templeman are watching an alien garrison emerge from hibernation and get themselves kitted out.  I can't remember how this trio manage to get away.  Let's carry on.

A quarter of them wore cylindrical helmets, and most had padded armour covering their arms and legs.

     Uncomfortable things to wear in a desert, realised the Doctor.  Formal militaristic equipment.  Probably a bonding and rank-establishing ritual.  This did not bode well!

     Several of the helmeted aliens stood around the shattered pylon, pointing at it and discussing amongst themselves.

     By the time the second intact dome's population had emerged from their little black boxes, the sun had sunk low in the sky.

     "Can you do something for me?" ask the Doctor of Albert and Professor Templeman.  They nodded.  "I want you to go back to your camp and take the truck you'll find there.  Drive it to the garrison at Mersa Martuba and tell them  what's happened here."  He dangled the keys to the truck from his hand, tempting them.

     There were few protests at this declaration.

     "What are you going to do?" asked Templeman.

     "Well, naturally I'm going to go have a closer look at our new companions!" beamed the Doctor, blandly.

     His erstwhile companions stole away silently, not convinced that their ally was being sensible.  The Doctor watched both them and the aliens alternately, worried that the latter might discover the former whilst crossing the lip of the sand basin.  Fortunately the shadows of dusk camouflaged the pair, and they presented no more than a fleeting shadow to any onlookers.

     Ah, well, now we know how two onlookers got away.


From The Grim To The Glorious

And back to another photograph in the BBC's competition to find a cover picture for their "Countryfile" calendar.  Art!

"Splitting Hares" by Tom Hale

     Hey!  I do the punning around here!  Conrad wonders how long or how many pictures it took until Tony got this shot, which had to either require infinite patience or sheer luck.  And yes, it's a hare, you can tell from the ears.


Potty Dotty

Still more words spring up in Dorothy L. Sayers - that "L" is there to distinguish her from all the other Dorothy Sayers - collected short stories of Lord Wimsey.  Who or what is a "Clerestory"? when it's at home.  Art!


     Ah, there we have it, a species of window at height.  So now we know.


Finally -

I did have another Tree Law story to tell, but unless I split it up into  parts it would not only take up the entire Intro, it would take up all the rest of our 1,200 word Adjusted Compositional Ton.  It's the story of a deliberate misunderstanding that escalates until it involves town sanitation, dredging, construction engineers, arborist and an incredible amount of money.  



*  Yes, we are giving totals in dollars, for reasons

**  Excuse the complex legal terminology here

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