Losing My Backyard

As a child, the backyard of my house was full of trees. They stretched back about half a mile and across the backyards of every house in the neighborhood. The trees used to be so thick that you couldn't see past them and they blocked all the noise from the parkway on the other side of them. 15 years later, probably 65-70% of these trees are dead. You can see through them easily and they don't block any more noise. When you walk through them, you're constantly stepping over dead branches and trees that have fallen over. There's very little of our backyard forest anymore and it's very sad to see.