Mississippi Street Hicks Yew Hedge

A.
In the many years I have been contributing to this blog and journal oftentimes I have declared some new writing methodology I am using to help with my work. I think "new methodology" has become a constant experiment with new forms - "new forms of articulation." The standard essay has of course been used, personal narratives and biographies, "non paragraph forms," - poems, lists, bullets, etc. - and now, at the bottom, the "Story in 5 sentences." The story in 5 sentences hopes to reduce the articulation to the minimum content needed to elucidate the problem as I can't bring myself to express the problem without a payload of personal emotion and affectations.

B.
​Each spring I arrive and find this hedge tattered and browned. I spend and hour or more combing through it, tipping out the brown. Years ago, it took a few minutes, but I would find in close inspection the large numbers of dead and discolored branches weren't some disease or salt injury but were all micro fractures and abrasions from the snowplow truck that clears the sidewalk here.
After the attendance, taking out the browns, and making some hard cuts to stimulate some fresh buds and growth, I would watch the hedge green up again through the season and leave it in the fall with optimism we were making a hedge.


C.
​5 Sentences (to keep out the emotion).

1. Each spring I find this hedge damaged - breaks and abrasions - from the snowplow truck that clears the sidewalk.
2. The sidewalk is six feet wide and the truck eight - which one MIGHT interpret as "This doesn't fit" - but no, still each and every year the truck and plow cram itself up on the Yews.
3. Parenthetically, off course (because a parenthetical or an aside some how creates a second voice to soften a criticism and protects the critic) - because we can't be critical of other's work! - ...it is possible to manage this sidewalk with a snowblower or a shovel.
4. I tried to advise the client on this last year: "If the plow contractor hits your fence or building, you expect the damage repaired, the value protected - but when your plants are broken you feel no loss.
5. Plants are assets. Plants have value. The Landscape is infrastructure.