Cottonwood Gets a Haircut

[kevin_standlee]

The scraggly stunted cottonwood tree in the East Lot was covered in new growth this spring, but that means that the air would probably soon be filled with cottonwood fuzz. So Lisa aggressively trimmed it a couple of days ago.



The tree is now surrounded by the trim, which we will haul over to the brush pile to be burned when debris burning is allowed again, probably in October.

This reduces, but does not eliminate, seasonal pollen around here That pollen is one of the reasons I still mask up, often outdoors away from anyone else. It cuts down on the amount of pollen I inhale.

Comments

[ravan]

Yep. On heavy pollen days when I have to go out I am grateful for my N95 masks.

[a_cubed]

You can also get precription or zero-prescription glasses with a seal around the edge (basically, goggles, but they look more like glasses) to avoid it getting into the eyes. So many people in Japan have cedar pollen allergy that they're quite easily available here from opticians, and not badly priced.

[kevin_standlee]

I might look into that. Thank you.

[megtreb]

Just curious, why don’t you just cut the tree down?

[kevin_standlee]

Laziness: Our chainsaw blade needs replacing and we've not gotten around to doing it. The small electric reciprocating saw we have isn't big enough to cut it down. So until we get that saw blade replaced, we would have to chop it down by hand. Because we rarely need the chainsaw, we have been reluctant to fix that issue. Everything smaller (like the branches) can be done with the smaller equipment.