Goodbye dearest tree

Today we said goodbye to our pine tree. After having given it a lot of thought we decided that the tree needed to go: the roots were damaging our cement and the seeds (litteraly millions of them) kept breaking down our pool equipment as well as our neighbours. Also we wanted the sun to heat the pool ... BUT ... we also loved this tree. 
So early morning we all said our goodbye to the tree and thanked her for all her years of being there. This went with many emotions because for Iris the feeling of loosing the tree resembled emotions similar to leaving Holland, moving, going away ... simply said a feeling of loss or letting go. For Tyko it was difficult too because he'd given the tree so much trust and love, that he was afraid that would be lost too. And he couldn't ask that back now, could he? And Bibi, our loving environmentalist, simply doesn't like anything of nature to be cut down. 
So we hugged the tree - yep, we are tree huggers :-) ... and made sure we had some remembrances like twigs, seeds, the acorns, pieces of bark, ...

But emotions aside, the cutting of the tree was quite impressive.

And after all the work was done we were left with a very light home - didn't expect that to change so much - with an even more beautiful 180 degrees view, with a stump on which we can do our meditation or talk to the people "down-under" and with a lot of fire wood.