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Archive for the ‘trees’ Category

Our Trees

Friday, June 6th, 2008

We built our house in the lot behind my parents’ lot (actually there is a lot in between their backyard and our property). From the time my brothers and I were kids our parents told us we could have a lot of land to build a house on when we got married. My oldest brother almost got to that point; but his first marriage ended in divorce and the house never got built. My other brother moved to MA and now lives there with his wife and three sons, so the odds of them building a house here are slim. So, of the three of us, only I and my husband have been able to take them up on their generous offer.

So, since Dad was getting those trees cut in his backyard, I asked if he would ask the guys to look at our big trees and see how much it would be to cut them down. Now, these are HUGE trees. Unfortunately, they are also very OLD trees. So Hubby and I have worried (on and off) about the safety of the trees. They aren’t particularly close to the house, so we didn’t think they would knock our house down or anything. But the thought of a heavy limb falling on a car or someone walking down the driveway crossed our minds now and again.

After some deliberations, we went ahead with the tree removal at our house.

One of the trees was very “crumbly” at the base. It was like balsa wood that you could just pull off the tree.

Above – the view looking down the driveway towards the house. You can kind of see the first tree where they just cut some large branches but not the whole tree (in the sunlit area).

The tree trunk was so large, they used a chain saw to cut it – they would go around and around the tree trunk cutting their way in. The pieces were so heavy they used the bucket to knock off the “slices”.

So, now we have less trees up at the edge of our driveway, but there is still enough shade from the other trees. We are still in our own little world in our back lot, which is just the way we like it.

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Trees

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

My sister in law laughs when the family gets together. We generally have two topics that we can spend hours talking about: how did someone get to the place we are (routes, traffic, new back roads found, etc.) and trees.
I don’t know why we find it so interesting, but we can go on and on about either subject (just ask anyone who has married into the family – they probably can’t figure it out either!)

So, at my parents house, there is a huge silver maple tree. It is in the back yard, but it hangs over the house, near the kitchen (downstairs) and my parent’s room (upstairs). Several years ago( ok – probably 15 years ago) my dad had my brother climb up the tree and cut down some of the branches. But, the tree continued to grow ( as trees tend to do), so it became more and more of an issue. Should any hurricane come by (it’s been a good 20 or 25 years or so since we got hit with one, so we are overdue) chances are good that there would be tree parts flying, and my parents were not particularly happy about the thought of a tree in their house. (Parents are funny that way, aren’t they?)

So, my dad had some tree work done at a cemetery where he is now caretaker (he’s retired now, so obviously he needs something to do!). He talked to the tree guys and they agreed to take care of the silver maple for him after they finished at the cemetery. So here are some pictures of the great big silver maple tree at my parents house going down.

This is the first day. In this picture (above) they had already cut some branches off.

In the above picture, my dad (grey sweatshirt) is taking a look at some the debris from the cutting. They had a chipper right there to take care of the branches and leaves – they were pretty good about cleanup.

Above – a piece goes swinging. It looks like it could hit the house in this picture, but it really wasn’t anywhere near it.

Here is what is left of the tree. Dad even had the guys do some more work in his backyard when they were done with the silver maple. I haven’t taken any pictures yet, but it has totally opened up the view into his backyard. You can now clearly see the outhouse from the road (time to get that door back on there!) and even see to the lot in back of the yard.

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