Julie Sloan said:

I'd say it's been near two years ago I asked you about girdling this
pest-tree in my yard. Our last communication is below.

Until recently I had a job working some kind of incredible hours with
a worse commute, so I never got around to removing a strip of bark
like you suggested. Blah blah, any old excuse will do... but, you
may have heard about last months' wicked ice storm in eastern
Kentucky/southern Ohio. The tree came down. Onto the garage.
Pictures at:

http://juliesloan.home.mindspring.com/poplar.htm

Ouch!

My husband and a neighbor are working with chainsaws and come-alongs
in their spare time, to turn the pest into next years' firewood. I'm
busy enough g with my own chainsaw, clearing fallen trees off what
was once a road up and down the hollers that make up our acres. I
guess I'll be buying a gallon of roundup shortly, to help control
those white poplar suckers.

Oh, I hate those white poplar suckers!

Here in the foothills trees are getting that first haze of leaf,
jonquils are blooming just down the road, and the ''daffydills'' I
transplanted last year have poked their little spears up along the
fence. I've turned the compost for the first time, am thinking about
building a redneck coldframe (bales and a storm-window), and am really
itching to get some good brown Kentucky earth under my fingernails.

How's things in your neck of the woods?

The snow is gone, the ground is frozen deep with a super-saturated layer
on top. I'm afraid to walk around much to check things out!

We finally have snowdrops (almost a month later than the last few years).

The robins are singing, and I've heard a flicker calling. Pretty soon he'll
be drumming on the stove pipe...

Plenty of rain, but is it going to sink in?

A neighbor had to cut down a huge an beautiful American elm, which got
Dutch elm disease. (Two years of drought has hurt a number of trees
in the neighborhood.)

Lot of dead ash trees in the area, due to the emerald ash beetle invasion.
(Drought or no drought, they are doomed if no solution to the new pest is
discovered.)

....I still haven't had the silver maple that leans over my garage checked out.
It has gotten watered in the drought, so has otherwise been healthy...
--
Pat in Plymouth MI

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(attributed to Don Marti)