Giant's end

These days, I'm so ticked off about the perpetrators of the carnage across the street that I'm inclined to blame everything, from global climate change to the impossibility of achieving world peace, on the developers. That's not exactly fair, I know, but I'm not exactly rational on the issue of development. So when, during this afternoon of 40-plus-knot wind gusts, the much-photographed guardian oak came crashing to the ground, my inclination, seconded by my neighbor—the huge and ancient tree was on his land—was to blame that bas..., well, you know, whose idea of enlightened stewardship is a clear-cut. This is, truth be told, not an entirely-without-merit assessment, for taking down all the trees on the ridge meant that we now had a wind tunnel aimed at the oak. But, more truth be told, the tree was clearly on its last legs, as evidenced by the massive crop of wood-rotting mushrooms that appeared every autumn. Though the tree leafed out every spring and most likely would have done so this year, the end was coming. If I can muster some charity on the day before Easter, let's just say that the developers probably hastened the inevitable.