If you’ve followed this blog for any time you may remember that I did a series of seasonal views of a line of windbreak poplar trees along the west side Kitchen Dick Road. There had been a long row of them that ran north to south for easily a full mile, broken in roughly the middle by Old Olympic Highway. As the picture above testifies, for the most part, they are no more.
We discovered them gone on Tuesday afternoon as crews from the Public Utility District wrapped up their work, leaving the trees in a tidy pile where they’d once stood. The trees I photographed still stand, a line of them perhaps 3/4 of a mile long.
Here’s the view looking south. Notice the power lines? Tree meets power line is not a popular pairing and the poplars were apparently close enough to cause concern. They were large and mature. I’m no expert, but they may have been reaching an age where branches get brittle and arborists start to worry. We saw dark heartwood in the stumps of many of the trees and I’m guessing that wasn’t a sign of good health. I hate to see them go but suspect some proactive logging has prevented potentially big headaches for the neighborhood power consumers.
And if you’re giggling at the road name, Kitchen Dick, like many others around here it’s named for two pioneer families who lived along the road. Drive it a couple dozen times and you forget to snicker.
