Tree Sitting in Tyngsboro

It is starting to rain. The downpour is accompanied by thunderstorms and some violent lightning and flooding that promises to wreak havoc on area commutes and weekend plans throughout the Hub. Canceling plans to beat the heat at Revere Beach or make way to the Cape may be easy decisions to make – the question remains, however, if Melisa DeMauro will keep her vigil atop a tree through the bad weather. Since Wednesday she's been occupying the upper branches of a tree that falls close to the line between her and her neighbors home in Tyngsboro. Her tree-top vigil was an effort to save the tree from her neighbors who want to cut it down.

DeMauro is a 28 year old Tyngsboro woman who is a part time waitress and substitute teacher who lives on a large plot of land that once was a family farm. She and her sister maintain crops of organic vegetables on the land – and she was quite upsethttp://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=145089 by her neighbors efforts to clear land around his pool by cutting down over 100 trees. Tree-sitting vigils are not a new thing, Julia Butterfly Hill is perhaps one of the most famous tree-top protesters after living in a tree for two years in the late nineties. Recently Julia, Daryl Hannah, and Joan Baez collaborated for their own tree sitting protest to save a walnut tree in the South Central Community Garden in Los Angeles. DeMauro's neighbor is waiting the official ruling of a surveyor of the property line to determine who's property the tree actually falls on before taking any further action. DeMauro has only been occupying the tree from early morning to early evening (about 7 to 7 each day, when tree removal contractors generally work).

Update: She's out of the tree. The tree may be too close to a wetland for anyone to chop it down legally, regardless of who's property it is actully on. The neighbor isn't making any moves with the chain saw so she'll be on the ground "bonding with the tree" until final decisions are made.

Photo: Flickr user Akuppa shows us what looking into a large pine tree is like.