Timber-r-r-r! Video at 11!
Michael and his brother Manuel have come on board to take down some trees that are endangering the buildings. When I say “buildings,” it probably sounds like we’re on an estate. But no, this is an idiosyncratic house. When Allysen’s parents built it, they could not bear to cut down several big cork trees on the hill, so instead they broke the house into two parts, living area and kitchen/dining area, with the cork trees in the middle, surrounded by wooden deck. Both structures are made of poured concrete and concrete block. It’s the concrete roofs that have tree trunks bearing down on them, one a mahogany and one a cork tree.
These two guys are Paul Bunyan types, fearless and strong as a blue ox. Michael climbs into the trees while Manuel handles the lines. Michael goes up, lines are thrown and cinched, and the next thing I see, Manuel has tied a running chain saw to another rope and Michael is pulling it up. Braaap-p-p-p! Crack! He doesn’t cut all the way through, but leaves enough wood to keep the trunk or branch intact. Then powerful but judicious hauling on the lines breaks the branch or trunk segment away and it swings free to be lowered by Manuel. Repeat. Many times.
The strength of these guys shows even more when they start cutting up the pieces, hefting them onto their shoulders, and carrying them along the up and down and around brick pathways, to hurl them onto a pile in the empty plot we refer to as “the back forty.”
The mahogany tree especially tugs at us—such beautiful wood. We ask Michael to slice us some cross-sections of trunk to take home.
(Coming next in Part 10, a visit to the mineral hot springs)
[To read The Ponce Chronicles in order, start here.]
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