Tree Cutting Adventures

Today, I’m heading down to New Orleans, along with part of my family, to spend Labor Day weekend with my niece, Lauren.  We are excited to see their new house and help her get some things done around there while we are there, like painting furniture and walls.  I’ll have lots of fun blog posts to share when I get back!  I’ll bet there will be baby and nursery talk this weekend too. 🙂

But today, since I share most everything that goes on around my house project-wise, I thought I’d share the latest with you. Last week I had 2 trees cut down in my front yard, so I documented it with pics.  I’m not a huge tree cutter and tend to want to hang onto my trees for the most part, but sometimes a tree can be dangerous and too close to the house and when that is the case, I’m not at all afraid to cut one down.  Such is the case with a huge pine tree that straddled the line with me and one of my neighbors.  I talked to my neighbor about cutting down the tree, but he didn’t want to share the costs.  I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask, so I did.  He gave me his blessing on taking the tree down, although didn’t really see the need.  The tree was leaning towards my house and I have heard horror stories about big pines falling in storms, so I figured I’d better be safe and get it down.  It might have stayed up for 100 years, but I didn’t want to take a chance on it falling.  Plus, pine trees are so messy. I don’t love their pinecones falling in my front yard and the messy pine straw they leave behind.

So, goodbye big pine tree!

There was also another smaller cherry tree, one of 3 trees lined up across my front yard that also needed to go.  It had dead limbs on one side and was growing into my beautiful pink dogwood tree, so it was time for it to come down too.  I’m left with 2 pretty trees in the front yard, one pink cherry and one pink dogwood, so that’s a nice view for me.  I got a recommendation from one of my friends who used a local tree cutter and she put me in touch with them.   I was very satisfied with the estimate I got to take down both these trees:  $550 for both!

When you see the size of my pine tree, I think you’ll agree, this was a good price! That was a scary proposition to watch and I was a tree climber from way back, but you couldn’t pay me to do what this guy did.

So, here’s what I started with.  3 trees lined up in my front yard. There’s a pink cherry on the right and a pink dogwood on the left, which is just gorgeous in Spring.  The pink cherry in the middle, however, has seen better days, with several dying limbs and it was growing into the side of my dogwood tree, so it was time to take ‘er down.

Here’s a good angle so you can see how close it is to my beautiful dogwood.

Growing right into the side, I definitely didn’t want it impeding on my dogwood growth and health.

This monstrous pine sits right on the line with me and my neighbor.  It drops pinecones and pine straw and is not my favorite tree to have around.  I’ve heard they have shallow roots and can uproot during storms, so it made me nervous, looming over my house.

As you can see from this angle, it is definitely leaning towards my mansion.   And we can’t have that!

 

 

This is a good shot of how big the tree is.  Not a small feat to get this sucker down.

The crew of about 6 guys showed up to take my 2 trees down last Friday.  They were thorough and knew what they were doing and I was very happy with how they handled it all.  First, chainsaws took down all the limbs and they cut this cherry tree down to a stump.

Limb by limb and it was gone in just a few minutes.  They brought in a small bulldozer to move around the trunk of the big tree and a big truck and wood chipper to get rid of all this wood. I could have kept some wood chips, but told them to haul it all off, please.

Cherry tree gone!

Limbs and debris that got fed into the wood chipper.  They were here about 4 hours.

This big truck hauled off all the wood chips.

Next, it was time for the big one. That big pine is no joke.  You can see those 2 guys and how small they look next to the tree.

The smaller guy took off up the tree with ropes and a gas powered chain saw.  He had spikes in his shoes to climb the tree.  As much as I loved climbing trees as a child, no way would I climb this thing.  You have to be young and agile to do this.  This guy knew just how to do it and I watched the whole process.

Limb by limb he started cutting them all off, working his way up the tree trunk.

Big limbs fell in the yard and the other guys drug them over and got them ready to go in the wood chipper.

Limbs fell all over the place.

Before long, the bottom  limbs were all gone and the trunk was bare.  He inched his way to the top.

Once all those bigger limbs were gone, then he picked a spot on the trunk which would take down the rest of the top of the tree.  This was pretty amazing!

Timberrrrr!!  Isn’t that what they yell when a tree comes down?

I did this in an animated gif program on Photoscape and got the whole top coming down.  Incredible, isn’t it?  Cutting both sides of the trunk with the chain saw, they had a rope tied to the top and 2 guys out in the road, insuring that it would fall where they wanted it to fall.

Then, just the trunk was left.  I missed how they got this down since I was inside the house, but the huge thud and shaking of my house told me when the whole trunk came down.  I think they probably did the same method and cut it down at the bottom with the chainsaw, pulling it down where they wanted it.

Once I heard the thud from inside, I went to the front door to see it laying on the ground, the massive stump left.

They then cut it all up and chipped it too.  Maybe I should have asked for a slice of wood, that might have been fun.  Oh well!

Once they were finished, my front yard looked like this.  They did a very thorough job of cleaning up and I was very pleased.

All that is left of the pine tree now.  I may have someone come back and grind the stumps, but I won’t be in a hurry about that.  This company didn’t do that part.

The front of my house looks a little cleaner now with the broken down cherry tree gone. Now my beautiful dogwood can take off and spread out like it needs to.  I’ve got lots of big plans to landscape this house and I’m waiting for a guy that I know to come and build me a cute front porch and peaked roof with columns.  He’s really busy, but I’m hoping he will get to me in the next couple of months before it gets too cold.  I can’t wait to get that done too and it will add a lot of charm to the front of my house.

So, that’s the low down on taking down some trees!  Have you had to do that at your house too?

I’m glad I didn’t have tons of trees to  have to take down. Some of the houses we looked at before I got this one were full of awful pine trees close to the house and overgrown backyards. I’m so glad that I ended up with a yard that’s a blank slate and I don’t have to do a lot of tearing out.

Landscaping additions, yes please!

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