A few years ago, a woman called me because her hemlock above the parking area at her house was dying. She wanted to know why, and asked if there was anything I could do to save it. I had worked for her and her husband in the past, but it had been four or so years.

Jerry King sketch

When I pulled in, I saw a three-quarters-dead hemlock about 6 inches at the base, but only about 20 feet high. I walked up the ramp to her front door and thought that I’d never seen a ramp there before. When the lady came out, she moved with a walker. She was much thinner than I remembered and was stooped over. Her skin was pale, and though she tried to fake it, her life seemed sad.

She told me her husband, who I only had known a little but always liked, had died a year before. And her health was obviously failing. I felt bad to see what was only a few years ago a happy little household turned into this rather sad and somewhat run-down property.

I told her there wasn’t much to do about the tree, as it was confined in a small landscape feature and was likely dying from two summers of well-below-normal rainfall. She asked me to take it down, because she didn’t want to look at it.

Then, as we talked, another pickup truck pulled in. She explained that she had driveway damage – I had noticed it on the steep hill on the way in – and needed to meet the excavation company to see about regrading the gravel. She went inside before meeting the man, but when she came back out, I didn’t pay much attention.

As she walked away with the driveway guy, I surveyed the property. The house was an old log cabin, probably built in the ’50s or ’60s. There was a bit of rot in the siding, and the foundation plants were overgrown. I knew it wasn’t worth bringing a crew up to the house for the one small tree. I had a handsaw under the backseat, but no chain saw in the bed.

While I cut the tree down with the handsaw, I thought to myself, “What is this worth?” It took me about a half-hour or so to cut it up enough to where I could drag it off into the woods. My minimum fee for tree work at the time was $200, and it wasn’t worth that. I also didn’t want 50 bucks, because I didn’t need the money that badly. Still, I felt I deserved something. I had to drive round-trip to her place, and I broke a good sweat cutting up that tree and dragging it off. I can’t stand it when there’s an implied expectation that I’ll work for free, even if it’s for something small.

As I got back into my truck, I still hadn’t figured it out; maybe I would do it for nothing, I just didn’t know. I looked up before pulling ahead, and there, sitting on the wide railing, was a six-pack of Labatt Blue.

I got out of my truck, grabbed the six-pack and put it on the passenger seat. As I pulled down the driveway, the lady was still talking to the excavator contractor. I stopped beside her. “I’m guessing this is for me,” I said, showing her the beer. “Yes, it is,” she said with a smile.

I drove away. “Perfect,” I said to myself, “at least there’s one tree worker who still works for beer!”

Michael Roche, now retired, is the former owner of Vermont Arborists, an accredited, long-time TCIA member company based in Stowe, Vermont, now a SavATree company. He is still a Certified Arborist and a Certified Treecare Safety Professional (CTSP), now living in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire.