In fall of 2001, possibly in September, I dug a large hole on the southwest side of the front yard, about 30 feet beyond the porch. In that hole we placed a two-year-old red maple. On the northwest side we planted a silver maple. That was the year we took what was formerly part of a large open pasture and planted trees, lots of them.

Today, 20 years later, we have tall poplars and maples, mature winged elms, stunning redbuds, “youthful” oaks, and an extremely slow-growing iron tree, all providing shade and pleasure as we take in the central part of the farm, the house, barns, and various smaller outbuildings.

The red maple grew fast, spreading both with a wide crown and a vast network of roots. The latter now gives a challenge to the less-than-nimble-footed as they cross the yard. The former quickly provided the key shade to the house in late summer. It allowed us to enjoy dinners on a front porch that has full western exposure, as the sun slipped in the hour before sunset.

Each mid-fall it lived up to its namesake, October Glory, and treated us to a blaze of red leaves. By early November, like others of its kind, it held out stark black-barked branches in a feeble effort to ward off the thin winter sun. Come spring, it was always one of the first, after the dogwoods and redbuds, then sweetgums, to bud pink and then leaf out, providing another year of shade for us to share our afternoon coffee and the dogs to lie under on a sweltering summer day.

In 2016 we had a catastrophic drought, no meaningful rain for more than 11 months. The next year we lost half a dozen 60-foot oaks in a windstorm. More trees died of disease in the ensuing years; we still have a healthy tree cover over much of the farm, but the lack of water for so long clearly stressed and weakened even the giants on our land.

Three years ago the red maple shed a large branch. The woodpeckers began to examine the bark closely, drilling holes in search of food. Two years ago another failed. Last spring it lost one of three central leaders, missing by a foot the glider where I had been sitting watching a storm come in just moments before. We began to discuss replacing the tree.

We hesitated to make the inevitable decision, knowing it was dying, but loathe to “pull the plug.” This winter, on a warm day in late February, when the sap had begun to run, we noticed that the honeybees had covered the red maple, extracting an early harvest from the holes provided by the woodpeckers. We agreed that afternoon to move forward with the removal. I had examined it previously and decided I could easily fell the tree. I just could not guarantee which direction it would fall, across the fence, across the porch, or onto other nearby trees and shrubs.

So, this past Friday afternoon, on a beautiful spring day, a young man clambered up using ropes and a safety harness. With his limbing chainsaw he dropped the branches one at a time, cutting the trunks into three-feet sections before allowing them to safely fall. He started high in the canopy, and in an hour and half’s time he was on the ground, cleaning up.

Over the next few weeks, we will chip the branches and use the mulch on pathways and in the gardens. The remainder of the wood will be split and stored for the cold winters to come. We will plant another maple near the trunk of the old one. And 10 years from now we will once again enjoy a late summer dinner in its shade, the dogs resting in the cool grass under the broad canopy of leaves.

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Reading this weekend: It is a Victorian weekend. Raffles: the amateur cracksman (E.W. Hornung), The Curiosities of Food (P. Simmonds), Rogue’s Progress: the autobiography of “Lord Chief Baron” Nicholson.

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