VDOT (Virginia's Destruction of Trees)

Spring in rural Virginia is beautiful. Flowers burst forth in a riot of color, the trees green up, nature is at its most spectacular—well, you get the idea.

This morning promised to be beautiful, until the sound of a chainsaw ripped into the stillness.

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), which doesn't have money to keep the roads in repair, apparently has plenty of money to send a crew and several pieces of equipment along the roads to hack up the trees, destroy wildlife habitat, and generally make a mess. For no good reason.

This is what I saw when we went to feed this morning:


I stood in the shop driveway and took this above picture while the crew—more than half a dozen guys hellbent on destruction—ripped into the trees across the road.


They lopped off branches willy-nilly, threw some of the branches into a chipper and the rest along the roadside. Any saplings along the road were changed to pungee sticks. I don't know where the birds went. The flock—the robins, mockingbirds, jays, titmice, grackels, and a cardinal pair that usually feed at my house and then roost in the roadside trees—took off.


Before long, the beautiful bushy cedars—shelter for a lot of the birds I feed—were caricatures of their former selves.

The VDOT crew turned their attention to the lovely white pines that line our property. Two along the road apparently were a problem. I begged them to leave the trees alone. They didn't.


Now the lower branches of my big pines are lopped off. I stood in the road and cried while VDOT desecrated them. The VDOT folks didn't give a damn.

Down the road to the farm, things were just as bad; even worse in places. This was the typical view along Blacksmith Road, a gravel road that few people travel:


Things were just as bad on my farm, which starts just before you come to Dinner Creek. Where the creek goes into a pipe under Blacksmith Road, VDOT threw limbs into the creek:


I have a picnic area just up from the creek. I'd even planted wildflowers in the trees along the road. Here's how it looks now:


Here's the entrance to the horse trail where they threw some limbs and shreds:


A little farther up, they shredded a bunch of trees:


Further up, I was looking forward to seeing this dogwood bloom. Dogwoods are dying of a blight, but this one had looked healthy. Or it did until VDOT cut it down:


Across the road from the ruined dogwood is my hayfield. Look how beautiful and green it is. Saplings along the edge used to prevent erosion; now they're shreds:


At the intersection, the stop sign was broken off a couple of years ago. Instead of replacing it, VDOT just put the stubby post back into the ground. VDOT can destroy trees but they can't replace a stop sign?


Here's what they use to trim along the roads. The bush-hog part goes into the air and takes out anything in its path (woe be unto any critter who gets in its way):


Now, VDOT can afford crews, equipment, and gas for its mass destrction of nature, but it can't fix the puddle and cracked pavement near my driveway?


Or the crumbling pavement and pothole across the road?


I don't understand. Can anybody explain the reason for VDOT's destruction?

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