I asked him as a professional in his field whether any of these trees showed signs of disease, structural failure, or any condition that would have justified emergency removal. He looked at me with a steady expression and said no. He said the trees had been healthy. He said the root systems showed no signs of rot.
He said there was no professional basis for an emergency removal justification. I asked him to include that assessment in his written report. He said he would. I paid his invoice the day it arrived. That report when it came listed the fair market timber value of the 11 trees at just over $9,000. It also noted replacement cost, which accounts for the age and size of the trees and what it would take to replant equivalent specimens at over $41,000.
I read that number twice. Then I opened a new document on my computer and began writing a timeline of everything that had happened from the morning I found the stumps to that moment. Every date, every action, every person I had spoken to, every document I had collected. I was not angry. I was organized.
There is a difference. Anger spends itself quickly. organization compounds. It was around this time that the Varners made their first move. I had not contacted them. I had not sent a letter. I had not knocked on their door. I had simply been quietly documenting for about 10 days when Gary Varnner came walking across the access road toward my property one afternoon.
I saw him coming from the porch. I sat down my coffee and waited. He was a large man, mid-50s, the kind of person who carries himself like he expects rooms to rearrange themselves around him. He had moved to this area from a larger city. He had made money in commercial real estate. He talked about both of those facts more than was necessary.
