King's College was all a buzz-- ha! You don't get that yet, but wait for it... King's College was all a buzz-- woo-- that's golden! Okay, I promise, I'll get through it this time. King's College was all a buzz in the past few days, as the grounds crew attacked a tree with full force to make way for a new-looking break area in University College Park. The adjustment changed the landscape of King's forever, and the majority of the campus never saw-- oh damn! that's a good one too!-- it coming. The gigantic tree by Leo the Lion was taken out from where it stood, and carted away in pieces. Surely, I grabbed some pictures for you. It's not like this was a regular day at King's. Classes and work came second to watching the big tree fall.

In the beginning, there was this nice little area (which was featured in a previous article with the PAs). Clearly there were some problems with it that needed to be fixed. Enter the chainsaws...

The red arrow indicates the tree that will be slaughtered. No, I'm not a hippie, but I have been ridiculed for my use of negative language by an old, mean man before. Regardless. This was when the day started. I snapped this photo because I was totally confused as to what could be going on-- not to mention they woke me up pretty early.

The tree gets cut. Students stop to watch it from a safe distance of about fifteen yards. The dog may be the winner in this picture. It smells the base of a sprouting tree, a sign of new life, while the humans watch the death of a long, tall hero.

Work took a back seat in some areas of the college. This security guard (back) stood in two spots close to the tree for over one hour (no joke) and watched it come down. Wanna see what they were watching? Click here.

In the end there was literally a cheer of "Yay!" In the midst of all that volume though, no one heard my hope for the evolving human condition slip off the cliff of satisfaction and into the abyss of frustration.

After day one, we had a cleared landscape. Could this be the end of the strife?

No sir. No it's time to uproot the... well, root. This involves days of digging, rocks, and tons of caution tape. On day two, there was a little mound of dirt that cast a small shadow over the pit of dirt, while Leo stood unwavering.

And then Leo disappeared behind the dirt. If it rained like it does around here, we could've had a Leo moat, but no such luck.

And that concludes the action for now. The project is no where near complete (at least no where I can see), but the grounds crew continues to work diligently on it every day starting at about 7:45 AM. Thank you grounds crew, and thanks especially to the guy who drives the lawn mower back and forth outside my window. He wears giant headphones to protect his ears. I don't have any to protect mine. Hats off to you sir.