Treeptych: three tree-orientated pieces of flash nonfiction

'You'd be surprised,' Darin Bue of Los Verdes Arborists told me a few years ago, in between barks of his chainsaw, 'how an arborist practically needs a degree in counseling to handle the negotiations between neighbors over how to deal with trees on property lines.' In our case, the negotiation concerned three small pine trees whose branches drooped across a neighbor's driveway, threatening several SUVs with dropping sap. 'Take the trees, Darin,' I told him. 'If you ask me, I'd choose sappy trees over gas guzzlers anyday. But I'm gonna pick my battles.'