This is not about North and South. It is about a utility pole and a pole that remained from a redwood tree that was too close to it. One is there to support a variety of cables and a streetlamp. The other just wanted to grow into a redwood tree to join the rest of the forest. One has been deceased for many years or decades. The other was alive just recently, but is now only a stump.
The picture above shows how many cables the utility pole supports, as well as the streetlamp. When I did my internship in 1988, the arborists whom I worked with knew what each of the various cables were for; high voltage, lower voltage, cable television, telephone and whatever else was up there. Fiber optic cables have since simplified the telephone and television cables.
The picture above also shows how the unfortunate redwood tree needed to be cut back for clearance from the electrical cables. I was mortified to see this so prominently visible on the edge of a main road, because I should have noticed the problem earlier and just cut the tree down. Not too long ago I was pruning many other redwood trees for clearance from other streetlamps.
Those who pruned it instead, along with any other trees that were encroaching into the electrical cables, were very efficient with establishing clearance, but not so proficient with aesthetics. Obviously, I could not leave this tree like this on the side of the road. Even if I did not care what it looked like, I did not want it to regenerate and immediately encroach back into the cables.
The picture below shows my corrective pruning. The stump is certainly not dead, and will try to regenerate, but will be easier to keep down. If kept down long enough, it may eventually die.
The second picture below shows the stripped trunk in two sections that are nearly eight feet long, and a short bottom section that is a bit more than two feet long. The two long sections are straight enough for gate posts (although there is another plan for them). It is a sad demise for the formerly healthy and sound redwood tree, but became necessary to keep the electricity on.
Tony Tomeo 
Reblogged this on Tony Tomeo and commented:
Utility clearance pruning is necessary, but should not be so idiotic.
LikeLike
They do that behind my house and then deposit the tops behind my fence.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They should remove all the debris that they generate. Even here, where I would not mind if the debris gets tossed into the forest, all of the debris gets removed. The standards may be different here from there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is a wooded area and they do not remove it. I could get in trouble for throwing debris behind my fence, but I guess it is OK for them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, they have different standards. In town, we need permits to remove trees, but such permits are not necessary for utility clearance. Nor is there any problem with disfiguring trees in a manner that would be illegal for anyone else. Of course, keeping the utilities operational is their priority. Nonetheless, the debris thing would really annoy me. My crews were never able to do that.
LikeLike
This is unconnected really – but you’ve just reminded me that upstairs in what we call our ‘grenier’ here (in France – it’s too big to be an attic … something large, with old beams visible, would have been for hay originally) we noticed when we were renovating that one of the beams is an old telegraph pole! Nothing wasted! I had no idea that redwoods regenerate so readily.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Some of the beams in old buildings here are trunks of redwood trees.
LikeLike