photo: summer 2008, cute little sweetie dancing in the backyard
The fig trees are the really bushy row of green trees that you see in the background.
****
They're taking down all of our fig trees!
Who is?
The utility company.
There's a strip of land behind our house that has power lines running down it.
The power lines are REALLY HIGH up in the air.
Unfortunately, as it turns out...
There are regulations about what type of vegetation can grow in the corridor that houses the power line.
The fig trees are technically on our land.
Yet they are also in the zone that is legislated by some of the utility regulations.
I cannot remember all the legal mumbo jumbo that is used in cases like this.
I think the word easement is involved.
But I'm not sure. I don't remember exactly.
I did, however, take notes when the the utility men were here to talk to me about the issue.
So I do have the precise language written down in my trusty notebook.
Okay: back to the fig trees.
So here's the situation: there is a federal regulation which states that utility companies must maintain the land below these power lines.
No tree which has a mature height of over 15 feet can GROW in the corridor.
At first I thought they were trying to tell me that we had to trim down our fig trees so they're not so high.
But no.
The fig trees cannot grow there at all.
They have to be completely removed.
They can't be there--simply because at maturity, a fig tree can be 15 ft tall.
Nevermind that the actual power lines are WAY WAY higher than that.
It really doesn't matter that our fig trees could never possibly touch those power lines.
The law is blind to the details.
The fig trees have to go.
I'll come back later to tell the rest of the story.
Part 2 of the Fig Removal Story coming soon. Stay tuned.
