06/03/2026
Monday, we watched anxiously from the yard as the top of Laetrice was finally cut and fell to the ground. Standing at sixty-five feet tall, this magnificent Balsam fir was a fixture of our horizon, a monument of steadiness that rooted herself here long before the farm was ever ours. That last morning she was filled with at least 100 yellow finches swirling and playing in her branches, as if to say their last goodbye.
For years, we kept her lit with white lights from top to bottom, completely unaware of the quiet comfort she was giving to the neighborhood. Neighbors reached out to share how much they loved seeing her glow from their kitchen tables and bedroom windows at night. A few from further down the road even told me that during winter power outages, they’d drive to our road just to look for her; if Laetrice’s lights were on, they knew the grid was alive and hope was on the way.
But time, disease, weather, and safety eventually demanded an ending. A presence that felt permanent is gone, and the silence she left behind in the sky is immense.
Those years with an old tree require a quiet kind of stewardship, a daily reliance on her shelter and the deep shadow she cast over the grass. What moves me now, looking at the empty circle where she stood, is how quickly the landscape alters. One day a giant stands; the next, there is only a sudden, blinding column of light.
Nature rarely restores things precisely as they were. More often, it transforms. The end of one magnificent tree does not signal the end of the soil’s capacity to create. Instead, this profound clearing has left behind a sudden, sun-drenched canvas.
We are cleaning up the sawdust, sweetening the soil with compost, and getting ready to plant this circle with tomatoes. Exposed, yet entirely vibrant, reaching straight up into the new light she gave us.
Some of the most extraordinary corners of a farm are not the untroubled ones. These spaces shaped by the elements, by loss, and by rebuilding. They possess a depth and a brilliant, new light that static perfection can never achieve.
Rest easy, Laetrice. Thank you for keeping the lights on for so long. 🤍
