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The trees are calling. So is democracy.

The largest of the oak trees a couple doors down from us, partway through the Monday Massacre.

I started this week really down. Yes, I know I should distance myself at least somewhat from the news, but I feel this pesky need to know what’s going on. It’s getting to be too much, though. I never thought I’d be living in the middle of a Batman movie with a supervillain taking over the world — and no Batman to save us. I’m sure you didn’t, either. Yet, here we are.

So I definitely did not need to hear chainsaws early Monday morning. Chainsaws cutting down the beautiful, life-filled oak trees a couple doors down from us.

The chainsaws interrupted my writing and ultimately led me to switch gears on my topic for this week.

As you may know if you’re a longtime Flower Child reader, I love trees. And as this 6-minute podcast by Monique Rhodes happened to remind me on the very day of the Monday Massacre, we are all connected — people and trees.

So much went into growing and nurturing these majestic oaks on my block. And these trees give us so much. Not just shade, beauty, and a small connection to nature in our residential urban environment. Oak trees also support more life forms than any other North American tree. They’re critical in maintaining local ecosystems. “Keystone plants” like oaks, as wildlife habitat advocate Doug Tallamy refers to them, account for 75% of caterpillar food. Caterpillars have evolved to eat and reproduce on those specific plants, and most birds rear their young on a diet that’s heavy on caterpillars — making oak trees a foundational part of the food chain.

I recently saw an amazing nature show taking place in these trees. As I was working in my home office, I heard a crazy cacophony of crows — much louder and more raucous than usual. It went on for a while, so I finally abandoned my work to check out what was happening. I saw this:

The fuss turned out to be about an owl; apparently, when owls appear the crows show up en masse to try to drive them away, because owls feed on young crows. The owl flew down from the tree and at first I thought it might be injured, but it soon flew away — after I took this video.

Even when owls don’t land on them, a lot of life is lived in these trees. Who knows what nests and creatures went down with them.

The reason for the Monday Massacre? The homeowner’s insurance company insisted that the trees were too close to the house. So they got to dictate what happened to these trees. Even though the property is Section 8 housing for low-income people. While my block has as many high-income as low-income people — this being the Bay Area — it has a history of being more low-income. The U.S. Forest Service estimates that “low-income blocks have 62 million fewer trees than high-income blocks,” or 15.2% less tree cover on average (30% in some areas). That means that low-income people have less access to the many benefits of trees — benefits that I happened to write about almost exactly two years ago, like better health, lower crime, and higher property values.

The Monday Massacre was disturbing on so many levels. So, why did it happen?

It’s no news flash that we’re in the middle of a major insurance crisis in California. Rafael and I live in a fairly urban neighborhood in the East Bay flats, not a high-wildfire-danger zone like the more wooded hills. But insurance companies around the state are getting nervous.

Last summer, our insurance carrier informed us they were dropping us because our area was “too densely concentrated.” At first I wondered if that meant they’d stop insuring anyone living in a city, as our neighborhood isn’t exactly super dense. But according to the broker who helped us find a new plan, what the insurance company meant is that it’s covering too many homes in the area, which could be risky for it.

With his help, we just barely managed to find new insurance — at an increase from the already expensive $2,000 a year to an exorbitant $5,000 a year. And who knows how long our coverage will last before we’re dropped again.

Some friends and family have not been so lucky. People we know in the hills have had to go on the California FAIR plan, a state “property insurer of last resort,” which is running out of funds because of the LA fires. These friends and family members are paying over $8,000 a year for not-so-great coverage, and who knows if the plan will be able to pay out at all if they ever need it.

Because of these issues, 10.5% of California homeowners have no insurance at all.

Florida is having similar problems with its increasingly severe hurricanes and rising sea levels. These states are the canaries in the insurance industry coal mine.

I get that we need to take measures to prevent wildfires. But I don’t know if the trees on our block were cut down for that reason. Some of the large branches were close to the roof, but for some reason, the insurance company decided that the entire trees had to come down. Even if their concern was fires, there must be a better way.

Apart from earthquakes, the main issues troubling insurance companies are all climate-change-related. Trees are one of our best natural defenses against climate change. So cutting them down, especially in areas not the most prone to wildfires, doesn’t seem like the best solution.

But then, does anything make sense these days? It’s all too fitting that this crazy thing happened in the midst of all the other craziness. I felt just as helpless watching the trees get felled as I feel watching our democracy crumble.

Still, I really couldn’t do anything about the trees. I feel like I can’t do anything about democracy, but that’s not strictly true. So much went into growing and nurturing our democracy. We can’t just sit by and watch it die.

During the Monday Massacre, I joined some friends for our local Not My President Day protest. I compiled a list of simple actions to take, like calling congresspeople. And, on that two-month anniversary of my father’s death, I once again felt thankful that he did not have to end his life as he began it, living under fascism.

My favorite sign from the protest today. Protesters were on all four corners of this intersection, and many more were at our state capital, Sacramento.

Now, please excuse me — I have to go rake the forest.

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A few actions we can take — we can’t save my trees, but let’s try to save democracy:

• Call your congresspeople. I know. As an introvert, I promise I hate it at least as much as you do; one reason I appreciate email and messaging, despite how annoying they are, is that they help me avoid making phone calls. But apparently this is the most effective action we can take. Check out 5calls.org to learn more. Here’s a script.

• Follow Indivisible. At indivisible.org, you can find the latest issues and an array of actions to take for each. Remember, phone calls are much more effective than emails or petitions. You can also join an Indivisible group.

• Get informed daily about actions to take. Chop Wood, Carry Water, “a short, cheerful, and hopefully helpful email containing easy political actions to take each weekday,” comes to your inbox five days a week with the latest actions.

• Find even more you can do. Again: phone calls, most effective. But if you’re really ambitious, here are “Thirty lonely but beautiful actions you can take right now which probably won’t magically catalyze a mass movement against Trump but that are still wildly important.” Don’t feel up for anything extra? Remember that you’re living in a capitalist system that drains you of time and energy, and just do what you can.

• Stay informed. Even if you want to go light on news, there are ways to keep up. Check out What The Fuck Just Happened Today?, Letters from an American, and Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance. As Joyce Vance says, we’re in this together.