Can't See The Forest Through The Trees...

...So I guess I’d better get rid of the trees then. A number of people have asked why am I taking these trees down. Well ya see; they’re all pines. And they all suck, because they drop pine cones and pine needles all over the place, the sap drops onto any cars that are in the driveway (and is like super-glue to try and take off), and anytime there is a decent wind, they drop branches. Not just regular branches, but giant ones that you can feel the vibrations through the house. So it was beyond-time for them to go. .

They say a pic says a thousand words, so instead of a big write-up for this one, I’ll just let the pics to the talking. .

Here’s some ‘before’ shots, showing most of the trees which were to come down.

The work has begun! Branches are being dropped and fed to the ever-hungry chipper.

Of course, waiting for the branches to come down sometimes meant there was a lot of this going on.

Bill, cutting and dropping.

See? Lots of standing around. That’s ok, though. The tree isn’t coming down yet. I’m sure the guys that’re just standing around will grab all that extra rope and lend a hand when needed.

Hmmm…guess not. That’s ok guys, we’ve got it!

Bill, sectioning the trunks.

Now this is when the wood really started moving. Jesse in the bucket, Bill working the crane.

The horseshoe stakes that Bill had put in a couple years ago were in the way so we had to yank them out. I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t pull out though. Tried working them back and forth without luck. I finally gave up and threw construction cones over them. Then Mike tried a hand at it and finally succeeded. Holy crap – no wonder they didn’t want to come out. They were 7’ long!! Do you really think that was necessary, Bill? LOL

Here’s some shots of the big-assed mother that we dropped into the back yard.

You see what’s going on in this pic? Yeah, this was pretty much when things were winding down. Guys were gravitating toward the fire. Oh, and see that blue box on the ground? Yeah, everyone was making friends with that. Ok, correction; they'd befriended the two blue boxes before this one, and would soon befriend the 4th and 5th blue box after this one. That's 5 boxes...@ 30 per box...are you doing the math?

Here are some after shots.

The next morning, Potsy was out to check on things. He was impressed with the size of our wood, and that we’d managed to not kill or maim anyone with it.

It was farking cold! We’d left the water running for the fire and look what happened. Even Potsy was amazed.

And here’s the back yard after everything was finally cleaned up. Not too shabby, eh?

So what’s the plan for all this wide open space? I don’t know that I’ll be able to afford it this year, but I want to have a company come in, yank (not grind) the stumps, then fill in with loam and get a nice lawn put in. I’ll have the front lawns redone at the same time, and then the household should be looking pretty damn good.

In closing, I’m going to try and get this vid posted. (Yes, the angle is sideways again. Sorry about that.) It shows the big monster tree that we dropped into the back yard. This was the one tree I was really excited to get rid of.

And there you have it; the tree job of 2011.