Personally, I was hoping we were done with this. I’m as tired of writing of it as you are of reading.

Since the school year started, our landscape department has seen an additional 4 incidents of tree vandalism. One, a newly planted tree was broken in what appeared to be a climbing attempt (no, we’re sure it wasn’t a squirrel of exceptional size). An arborvitae was snapped in half in front of a dorm, and a random branch broken off a a large sugar maple in front of Johnson.

The final straw, though, and the reason for the quick post on a lunch hour, was the near total destruction of a little red oak by the Davis Family Library. Nearly every single branch on this street tree was broken or bent downward, leaving only the very top branches. This wasn’t just a random “lets grab a branch and break as we walk by”, this was intentionally standing in front of a tree, breaking as many branches as you can reach. Cruel, senseless, disheartening, and more than a little bewildering. What can we do as  a community?

Just the other day a crew chief and I were interrupted by a student walking to class, and he’d mentioned how he had joined us tree planting on Arbor Day. He pointed to the tree he did, and said he can’t wait to bring his kids to see it in 30 years. So we keep planting, and keep pruning broken branches.