Life In The Canyon _ Post Mortem

I live in a canyon that was the 19th Century site of the first forestry research station established in the US where various trees were brought to California, among them the magnificent eucalyptus. Two days ago one of them, probably 100+ years old and around which I built my home is now scheduled  to disappear, too large and too old to live and be safe. I walk the yard before the sun appears. I look up through skylights to try to imagine the void, clear sky it will leave behind when I used to feel so protected by its covering.. In three days it will be no more...even the trunk will be ground into the earth.  

Here is its story: 

A house support column was in danger, A pencil line crack was running a slow jagged line around its circumference.  Concrete but obviously not impermeable and the rebar in danger of moisture, resultant rust and weakening.

The ground was riddled with wrinkle lines of surface tree roots from this ancient tree, shallow rooted and worrisome in and of itself for the Eucalypts were brought to the US as savior trees - windbreaks, wood - yet abandoned due to their brittle nature, their tendency to fall, many far younger that ours.  Yet they are beautiful, scented and majestic.

Ours had to come down.