Simple as

The tree guys contracted to Central Maine Power have been buzzing around our roads this week. ABC is their name, and apparently life is simple. Cut down stuff near the power/phone/cable lines.

I can understand the need, especially after yet another big storm this past weekend that keep those boys out till all hours on Sunday and Monday. Prevention is nine-tenths of the cure.

I cannot understand their approach to the task. My walk to Lucia Beach today afforded many examples of the art: felled trees directly under the lines, check; trees cut down that were minding their own business some yards away, huh?; branches trimmed directly around the lines, OK; branches clearly not long enough to fall on a line yet snipped against the trunk, why? Did they need to cut bushes too? In some cases, judging by the diameters, the offending limbs were mere twigs. In at least two cases, trees now are shaved completely on one side, top to bottom. They look like comb-overs. Yet hundreds of trees are still standing where another strong storm could send them toppling on the wires. Is CMP next going to clear great wide swaths as if our little lines were grand trunks from Quebec?

The poles and wires and boxes and Time-Warner canisters are now even more visible, and ugly. I guess it's the price we pay for continued access to Google Maps and Maine Things Considered and How I Met Your Mother.

Granted I'm a little sensitive about our trees. Granted I know nothing about electro-arboreal science. But I just don't have faith in randomness, or pique, or slap-happy chainsaw dudes, especially when the name on the loud, grating machine that chews up the small stuff is the Whisper Chipper. Gentlemen of the saw, irony is lost on trees, and bleeding hearts. If you start to call your chainsaws Civilization Enablers, prepare for war.