Journey 4 - Destination

The

I don't know about others, but I, like any other tree, have started to wonder about my fate. Ever since almost every year my friend, the forester, would pass by this neck of the woods, sometimes measuring us with a crutch, sometimes hammering us with all sorts of instruments never seen before. I sensed something was coming. Especially since something similar had happened to my cousin. You know him. I tell you about the big smile on the rock on the hill. The one that first smiled his crown's tip as the sun rose in the morning from behind the ridge and bade farewell to the star of the day, his branches reddened by the setting sun. Let me tell you how it happened.
Must have been about three years ago. For a while now, I've been seeing a couple people crawling around his lap. They'd come up, tap him lightly with a woodpecker, others with an open palm. They'd listen with their ears pressed against the bark, and they'd tap it again and again, and they kept looking up at the peak, which was about thirty meters above the cliff. It wasn't long before, one winter, they came armed with axes and a beschie, knocking him to the ground. They cleaned him of the branches, which they dragged back to the cart where they loaded them into a cart, then they tied him to a horse harness and he was gone. Rumor has it he was taken straight to the violin factory.
Will the same thing happen to me?
I'm curious what else life has in store for me!
In a way, I'd feel sorry for the friends I leave here.
I'd feel sorry for old Santa Martin who, when he came near me, would get up on two legs, as if he wanted to hug me, and sharpen his claws on my bark. Then he'd go grumbling to the nearby raspberry bush where he'd gorge himself greedily until he got a tummy ache. He would come back washed and stick his paw into the anthill of ants beside me, which he licked to get rid of the bellyache.
I would feel sorry for the two fat squirrels who, as they munched with relish on my cones, were laughing at their cousins in America who did not, like them, have such a marvelous tail. They also laughed at their gray cousins in the Asiatic tundra, who did not have such a pride of reddish or black fur.
I'd miss the elegant black, white and red-clad snowdrop that woke up the whole forest with its machine-gun noise, when it fed by nibbling on our bark and saved us from the little worms and geese that swarmed under it, making us suffer.
I would miss the owl that, at night, would take flight unheeded from my branches to catch in its claws a poor little mouse that hunger had driven out of its burrow or some wretched cowbird.
I will also miss the lynx or the lynx with its striped fur and the speck on the top of its ears, which, in the dark nights, creeps in unheard, like a ghost, to hunt some sleeping bird, squirrel or a reckless baby deer.
And how many more!
But on the other hand, I was happy.
I'll finally get rid of the worms that cocooned my needles. I'll also get rid of the dandruff that some call the bear's beard and which was drying out my branches. I'll get rid of the mites, the white flies, the rust. No more will grow on my bark the cowberry, or, as it is more commonly known, the iasca, which sucks my sap and leaves deep scars.
And, one spring morning, when it was barely dawn, they came. With a great shout, they entered the fir-trees, accompanied by small but strong horses, who were used to the forest. Armed with hatchets, axes and hoes, they set out to put us to the ground. Only the most aristocratic escaped. After they had cleared us of branches, the horns came. They rolled us into the brook with their goats, then, with the help of horses, they dragged us to the road.
Where will we end up?

Waiting