Tree Removal

Well, the tree removal crew finally arrived this morning.  Considering that the first scheduled day was about 50 degrees and the second scheduled day was 45, I think they regretted their delays.  When they arrived, it was only 18 degrees and never got above 24!  And some wind whipped up after a couple of hours. 

It got off to a bad start!  The plan was for them to drive the grinder machine into the back yard (which I have done with my car several times) to leave me the chips/sawdust in large piles in the corner of the yard and the the center near the pond.  The first would decompose to compost after a couple of years and the second I would spread around about 4" deep to suppress grass.  But the estimator failed to consider that their truck was 2 feet wider than my SUV! 

So they went to back it onto the front lawn as far as possible.  Damn that grinder machine is heavy!  The wheels sank up to the rim and they had to pull it back to the street.  The lawn is easily repairable, but the crew was sad.  Instead of having to haul the pieces of 8 trees about 30 yards, they had to haul them 60 yards!  It also meant I wouldn't have the chips, but the price was the same either way.

But they got going with the job and everything went fine after that.

I didn't take pictures of the trees falling (they don't come out well).  But I did take some of the stump grinder they brought in for the fallen tree's stump.  It doesn't LOOK all that impressive.

The stump DID look impressive, front

And back.

But the grinder did the job.  That wheel has teeth around it and edges on both sides.  It swings back and forth and just pulverizes the wood and dirt a few inches at a time.

After they smoothed the pile it left, it looked like this.  Like it was never there...

I had them leave the other stumps because the surrounding areas were covered with emerging daffodils and they would have been decimated.  The stumps will rot (and they don't bother me).

I sure hope the additional sunlight will be worth it!