It seems like all we ever do around here is cut down trees. I stopped counting somewhere around 275 trees. And that was several years ago. We were surrounded by trees. Unfortunately, most of them were at the end of their natural lifespan. Had we been surrounded by 500 young trees, things would have been easier. But our property had been farmland a hundred and fifty years ago and most of our trees started growing around 1905. All at once. That meant most of them were a hundred years old. In hindsight, we should have had a logging company come in and take everything along the front, and we could have just dozed it all flat and started with a clean slate. Or we should have invested in a boom truck, a chipper shredder and a portable saw mill. It would have all paid for itself by now.
There were these trees
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| 2005 |
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| the tops burned for seven weekends straight without relighting |
And those trees
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| 2006 |
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| We turned this |
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| This Larch tree became bead board ceiling |
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| This giant Red Oak became wainscoting |
Often, we feel overwhelmed and call in a trees service.
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| More 2020 |
We still had one large section of frontage in wild woods
It was wild and untouched. A lot of trees were dying but we were just pushing them over in when we could and leaving them. It was a bit of an unkempt mess, but it was still providing a nice screen from the road. Then at the end of March
this happened.
It took three people five hours to clean this up.
And my husband spent another day in there cutting
damaged trees and removing collateral damage.
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There are half a dozen more White Pines in there
which are just as big or bigger.
They tower above the power lines, and lean over the road.
My husband worried about them for a couple of months and
then decided it was worth the money to know they weren't
going to come down on the power lines, or worse, someone's car. |
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 | They are too big to wrap your arms around.
The opportunities for disaster are numerous.
This is the job for a tree climber. By lunchtime he had two pines
limbed up and one medium sized Maple cut.
There is still a lot of work to be done. |
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The boom truck maxes out at 52 feet. After that he has to climb
With his chainsaw hanging from his belt, he climbs removing limb after limb. To avoid hitting the power lines on the way down he has to tie off each branch and lower it. Then pull the rope back up. It is exhausting, tedious work.
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When he finally gets to the top the trunk is still
as big around as he is. The top is split but that's just another limb right? |
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He ties a rope off and his crew walk into the woods to get
the right angle to pull the top over and away from the power lines. |
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And we're left with just a toothpick.
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The end of Day #1. One down. Five to go.
As I type this final sentence and hit the Publish button, I hear the truck start out in the lot
They're back for day #2.
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