The Bramble And Sapling Jungle, Part 2

Well, the DR Brush mower is pretty fearsome.  It basically says that if you use it carelessly, you could lose a foot.  The blade under that shroud is very heavy, fast, and sharp.  You can't cut a 1.5" sapling into mulch with a simple lawn mower!  A word to the wise is sufficient...  I was careful.

Here is what the half of the backyard looked like before...

The cleared portion on the right; uncleared on the left...

The view from the deck.

And that was after an intial test of the DR brush mower.  I could tell it would work well.  It is self-propelled and can push over and mulch saplings up to about 1.5" diameter.  At the same time, it is a large machine for an individual and turning it around takes some effort.  But it mowed down the brambles mercilessly!!!

I wish I could say all it took was guiding it around the brambles, but there are limitations.  There were old 12' tree strumps.  There were 3" diameter saplings.  There were rabbit holes where a tire would spin helplessly.  I did the open areas first, and when I had to force the tires out of rabbit holes, I did.  The reverse propelled gear helped.

So then I was faced with saplings too large for the brush mower to push over and chop up.  I stopped.  I have to say that I sure liked the battery-powered hedge trimmer.  It cut the wild vines very well.  I still got stuck on a lot of falling brambles, but I found and old leather hunting jacket in a closet (I'm a bit of a "saver" and that was immune to bramble thorns.  It was so old I couldn't zip it closed (it was about 6" too small at the waist, LOL!) but as a cover, it worked well.

After hedge-trimming as many vines as I could from ground level to as high as I could reach, I went after the larger saplings with my electric chain saw.  I deliberately cut them about a foot high so that I knew where they were ( I wanted to know where they are for complete removal later).

That was several weeks ago.  Because after bending around awkwardly to chainsaw the saplings and haul them out of the vines and put them in piles for cutting the pieces to fit my hauling trailer (to bring them to a County place that makes free mulch)...

I woke up the next morning and couldn't stand up.  Yes, I mentioned that in a previous post and I'm just catching up.  I had 2 weeks of pain and used up 2 tubes of muscle relief ointment (Aspercreme, not that smelly type that athletes use to advertise their need for something).

A few days ago, I woke up and all was well with my back.  So, naturally, I went back at the yard work.  And more about THAT tomorrow...

The Bramble And Sapling Jungle, Part 1

IIRC, it was Disney's 'Sleeping Beauty' that had a briar jungle raised around her sleeping place by the evil Queen Maleficent.  Her briar jungle had nothing on mine (in my eyes).

 After I removed some junk trees that had finally grown tall enough to shade my vegetable garden 6 years ago, the increased sunlight below them allowed shade-supressed wild blackberry, wild non-fruiting grape vines, green-briars, and English Ivy grew rampant.  Junk tree seeds found a good spot to grow.

When I moved here 32 years ago, it was like that.  It took me 5 years to clear the area.  I dug out a 10' circle 2' deep and installed a pond liner.  I dug a 40' long raceway downslope to the pond and installed a liner and a submersible pump to push water to the top for waterflow over rocks I placed in the raceway.  The sounds of the splashing water were always soothing.  I bought a bench to sit on to enjoy the pond and raceway.  I built a nice little bridge across the raceway for convenience and planted hostas along both sides and planted astilbes all around the pond.

Somewhere over the years, I kind of ignored it for a while.  Fall leaves filled it and were hard to net out among the lily plants and sweet flag.  A fallen branch poked a hole in the liner about 6" from the bottom and the pond drained.  I tried to patch the hole, but could never get it properly sealed.  Then one hot Summer day, I realized there were tens of thousands of mosquito larvae growing in that 6" of water.  I poked more holes in it deliberately to drain it completely, intending to replace the liner and get the waterflow working again.

That didn't happen.  The pond liner replacement was always on my "to do" list but other things came first.

Two years ago, I decided to try to reclaim that portion of the back yard.  Loppers on 8' high 1" thich wild blackberries does not work.  They ALWAYS fell on me and getting those things loose is awkward and sometimes painful.

I decided to hire someone to clear the area.  Individuals said it was too much work; companies said it was too little work  One guy agreed to do the work.  He didn't show up.  When I called him, he was in a hospital with a broken leg and that he was retiring from yardwork.  I expressed my sympathies to him about the leg, but it left me no choice.

I was going to have to do it myself!

I bought a DR Brush/Sapling mower.  After delays (the shipper lost it) then (after they found it 3 weeks later) discussions about how it could be delivered (they wanted a commercial dock to deliver it to and I had to arrange a 3rd party delivery), I finally received it.

The Brush/Sapling mower works great.  But that is for tomorrow...

Pond Renovation, Part 1

Well, I have this 5'x3' pre-formed hard pond shape in the flower pond.  It has a shallow shelf around the edge and a deep spot in the center so it cant freeze.  I put in pots of Sweet Flag and waterlilies years ago.  It takes some maintenance.  And I'm not great at maintenance.

Every couple of years I just sort of forget about it and it gets a bit out of control.

Well, apparently, I set a record for ignoring it.  I mean, the plants grow, it rained enough to keep it filled naturally, and everything seemed OK.

Until I noticed that even after heavy rains, it wasn't staying filled.  So I refilled it with the garden hose.  The next day it looked dry again.  Oh damn, a leak!

So a few days ago, I decided to pull the individual potted plants out to find the leak.

Guess what?  I couldn't remove the individual potted plants.  They were intertwined.  In fact, as I discovered, the entire interior of the pond was nothing BUT roots,  and most of the plants were growing outside of the original pots!

I couldn't lift the mass of plants out the the pond.  But I have something called a "Digger Knife".  It is basically a dagger with a saw blade.  I started cutting pots out of the root mass. 

In 2 hours of hard work, I had 1/3 of the root mass removed and stopped for the day.  My work rule is 30 minutes max and 15 minutes relaxing.  I don't want to die stupidly.  I go inside to cool down and drink Gatorade.

I also wanted to save as many of the plants as possible.  Well, it really is amazing how many large containers you have around if you really search.  I found 4 and filled them up with water.  So as I cut one portion on plants loose, I stuck them in those until they were packed.  But as long as they have water, they are fine.

The next day, having many plants in water in containers, I got a bit more brutal.  I just kept cutting with the digger knife until I was down to about 1/3 the root mass.  I weighed myself in the  morning and later in the day.  I lost 3 pounds in sweat.  So I drank a lot more Gatorade, sat inside an hour and went back outside. 

THIS TIME, I was able to lift the preformed pond up and over, spilling the remaining root mass onto the lawn.  Whew, that was a great relief.  I now had the preformed pond loose and could look for a hole to repair.  And I couldn't find one.  The best way to look for a hole in something is to hold it up to the sunlight.  Nothing, nada, zip...  So I set the preform on the lawn and filled it up halfway (because it seemed to be leaking lower than that).

The next morning, the water level was exactly the same!  I was utterly baffled.  So I scooped out the water and poured it on plants (avoiding wasting water) and considered the shaped hole in the ground.  Well, it was never quite level, so I added some soil at the low end, and pounded in in removing the smallest bits of gravel.

So I put the pre-form back in place.  And refilled it.  It isn't "perfectly" level, but within 1/2" and that is good enough.  It used to be a bit tilted toward the back, so the front always looked a little empty.  Now the front always looks full.  Better.

Now I have to wait to see if it leaks again.  I put a stake at the spot where the water overflows.  If it is below that in 2 days (accounting for evaporation), I will drain it and decide whether to line the inside with plastic, scrub the outside and inside and paint it (inside and out with a water sealant, or replace it.

I have enough problems with some parts of the yard as it is (wild blackberries, english ivy, and poison ivy showing up everywhere).  I really didn't need this one.  But it was a very specific problem and I sort of needed that.

Those other problems come next.  I'm in activity-mode...

Simple Useful Work, Part 1

Some days are good for starting major projects, some days are good for doing nothing, and some days are good for doing a bunch of minor stuff.

Yesterday and today were good for minor stuff...

First, I got my Very Large rain gauge set up.  I did feel like digging a 2' hole for a 4'x4' wood post (like I used to have it on), so I used an old piece of metal pipe that I could just pound into the ground at a new spot.  And "wonder of wonders", the pipe was perfectly vertical in both directions.  I used metal pipe brackets to hold a piece of scrap wood to the pipe, then attached the rain gauge holder to that with screws.  The rain gauge is aimed directly at the master bathroom window so I can see how much rain as soon as I get up in the morning.  That red thing at the bottom floats, so I can easily tell from the window.  Helps me plan my day...

And I had to make a new holder for it because I installed a hose reel at the old spot last year.  I got tired uncoiling and recoiling the hose every time I needed to mow the lawn and found a good solid powder-coated aluminum hose reel.  It did say "wall mount only".  They don't know me very well, LOL!  Some of you may remember this project.

I not only post-mounted it, I constructed it so the hose reel would swivel (so that I could pull it off in the directions I needed to use the hose.

It turns right.

It turns left.

Well, that because I attached a metal TV turntable (that I had sitting around for years, bought at a farmer's market because it "looked useful") between the 2 layers of boards!  And figuring out how to do that nearly drove me crazy!  You see, you have to drive screws into it down into the bottom layer of wood AND up into the top layer.  But as soon as you do the first, you can't do the second because the bottom wood prevents access to the upwards screws.

I found a few videos online about how to do that and still couldn't figure it out.  I sat at my workbench for an hour each several times before I finally caught on.  I won't bore you with the details (unless you need to know, facing a similar problem), but it finally worked.

The 2 platforms are edge-joined boards.  That may sound flimsy, but each pair has 3 glued biscuits and a strip of construction adhesive between the biscuits.  They wont come apart.  Anything worth doing is worth over-doing, I always say!

Then I drilled 2 holes through both platforms and dropped bolts into the holes.  That stops the hose reel from turning when I rewind the hose (it swivels back and forth forcefully when I turn the winding handle otherwise).

The rest tomorrow...

The Digging Edging Trenches Blues

I am getting rather tired of digging trenches for edging around the new landscaping areas...  So I'm writing about it.  So here are "the blues".  Or at least, "the aquas"...

"I'm grabbin my shovel,
And digging the ditch.
All round the outside,
Then inward, kapish?

Its tedious working
And boring as Hell.
Can't wait til it's over, 
I'm sure you can tell.

I got the busted cramped left foot jambed down on the shovel blues....*

The shovel's 6 inches
The edgings 80 feet.
That's 160 times,
Foot and shovel must meet.

And sometimes there are rocks,
And the pounding repeats,
It aint nice at all 
Pounding shovel with feets.

 I got the busted cramped left foot jambed down on the shovel blues....

First it looks like no progress,
Just a few feet at most.
But then its some more feet,
And the ending is close.

But I'm fooled by the shadows,
And I finally see.
I'm just half-around,
Can that possibly be?

I got the busted cramped left foot jambed down on the shovel blues....

I wish I could do
Like Paul Bunyan did.
Drag a huge axe behind me
So a ditch I could dig.**

But I finally finished,
Halalluah I said.
Now all I have left,
Is to grub-hoe and dredge.

I got the busted cramped left foot jambed down on the shovel blues....

I'll wait til tomorrow
The grub-hoe work instead.
For now I have cramps
So I'm going to bed!

I got the busted cramped left foot jambed down on the shovel blues....

* Some things I do are lefty, some righty.  I think I was a natural lefty as a tot but taught to be a righty.  Sometimes I think that affects my thinking too.

** Legend says Paul Bunyan got tired of carrying his huge axe on his shoulder so he dragged it behind him once, creating the Grand Canyon.

But seriously, the end is in sight.   I did finally finish digging both around the outside and the inside of the edging and tomorrow I can scoop the loosened soil out of the trench and put the edging in.  There are a few shallow spots with largish stones that need to be cleared, and there are apparently 2 places where there are tree roots.  I'll cut the edging to fit over those.  Just one more bit of work, LOL!  But backfilling the edging is the easiest part and will only take half a day.  

Then I can finally plant!  I sure didn't expect it to take this long.  But I routinely under-estimate the time projects take.  Maybe that's what allows me to take on some projects.  I suppose if I knew how much time each one would actually take, I would never start any.  And then where would I be?

I guess I would rather under-estimate the effort and DO the projects then accurately estimate them and NOT do them... 

Crocuses Border

While I was oredering spring floering bulbs (daffodils, tulips, hyanciths) for the new plantng areas, I also had the great idea of replanting the border to the older flowerbeds along the property line.  Sure, why not?  Like I had nothing else to do.  I get myself in these situations where work seems easy when I'm looking at plants online and "gee, how hard could it be to do that"?

ARGHHH!

So...  I used to have a border on the old flowerbed with alternating 1' sections of yellow and purple crocuses.  The voles ate most of them the first year.  But one section survives (for reasons I do not know).  So I want to replicate the gorgeous look of the row of alternating yellow and purple crocuses, but protected from the voles.

The solution is 1/2 "galvanized steel mesh wire cages buried just under ground.  OK, that requires building the cages, digging up the soil, and filling it back in.  It could be a lot worse.  At least THIS soil is well aged and loose, so digging it up is easy.

The real work will be making the cages.   But I am pleased to say I have solved that.  In design anyway.  I planned the cages 8" long, 6" wide, and 4" deep.  But then there was the problem of cutting the shapes out from the existing 3' width rolls of 1/2" wire mesh I bought. 

Well, I started drawing out shapes of unfolded cages.  You remember those IQ or SAT questions about "what is this shape unfolded"?  I got those every time.  Easy Peasy...  So I sat down with graph paper and started laying out the  shapes foldable into cages.  And because the stuff is a bit expensive and I'm cheap, I kept playing with shapes until they worked out with NO wasted material. 

Took an hour of updating software to get the sketch to scan, LOL!  My printer/scanner drivers always seem to be out-of-date...

I'll try to clean this of on some drawing program, but it basically means that I (or you) can make twelve 8" long x 6" wide x 4" deep cages from 5' 4" of 1/2" hardware cloth.  But it means I found a layout of mostly foldable parts and some few ends that need to be wired in place to make cages with NO WASTE! 

And I've made a form for the bending out of scrap 2"x6"x8" wood.  Its simple enough.  Cut a nominal 6" wide 8" long and screw and glue supports under it.  Or just screw and glue 3 stacked onto each other. 

If you have questions about that, email me at cavebear2118 AT verizon DOT net.

My plan is to have an 8" cage, 4" space for an annual plant like a marigold or zinnia, then another 8" cage along the entire 75' flowerbed edge.  So I'll need 75 cages for 75'.  12 cages per 5' 4" = 64' of the cage mesh, and I have 150' of it.  The rest will be used up in 18"x18" cages for the tulips and hyacinths in the new areas.

It all comes together, see?  :)

With apologies to The Beatles:  

"And, in the end,
The flowers you grow
Are equal to the work you do... "

Or to put it another way I read once,  "If you like bacon, you need to get down in the mud and keep the hogs happy".  Meaning that whatever you do, you can do it poorly or well.  Poorly lasts a couple years.  Well, lasts a lot longer.  Doing things well takes less work in the long run.

The Three New Planting Areas

You ever get yourself planned for more than you can do  by the time you should?  Of course you have.  Think of that last party you threw...  For me it is planting stuff.  And the order of planting stuff can get awkward too.

I'm tired of digging ditches for edging.  It's harder than I thought for the 3 new planting areas.

Perspective is strange.  That far one is as big around as the near one.  They are 80', 40', and 80' respectively.  So I had to dig narrow trenches 5" deep to set the edging down mostly in-ground.  The far area ground has a lot of gravel and rocks.  Half the digging required a leverage fork to dig dirt loose along the perimeter, a pick to loosen the rocks, a trenching shovel to scoop the loosened mixture out, and a grub hoe blade (the other side of the pick) to chip away the bottom to get in uniformly 5" deep. 

Naturally, all those tools have short handles, so I was either bent over or on my knees the whole way around with each tool.

OK, it's getting easier as I move toward the house.  The soil is better.  Maybe.  Fewer rocks, but more heavy clay.   The clay stick to the tools and I have to bang them on the ground to get the stuff off!  I was going to say I can't decide which is worse, but actually they both are.  :(

Then of course, the edging has to be set in the trench and the trench has to be refilled.  More fun...  Well, it's easier to backfill the soil than to dig it up, but it still takes some work.

So I have the far area finished (took 3 days of off-and-on work).  More "off" than "on" because I'm way past 30 (my vague recollection of when I was at my physically best).  At 65, I'm at the point where I don't mind working hard with rest in between but darn don't want to die of a heart attack just to plant some flowers.  At 30, that possibility never even occurred to me.   So I make sure to stop every 15 minutes and relax for 5.

I finished the middle edged area today.  Just the nearest one left to do, and I am pretty sure that area as the easiest soil to dig in.  I might get that last edging in in 2 days.

But today, it occurred to me that I have a timing problem with the plantings.  The far area will have a natural wildflower area and some transplanted purple coneflowers, goldenrod, and black-eyed susans.  The smaller middle area will have only the invasive Lychimastria Firecracker.  The nearest area will have half-shade wildflowers.  So far, so good...

But 2 weeks ago, I had the great idea of planting a lot of spring-flowering bulbs among the areas for early color (and most enclosed in below-ground 1/2" wire mesh cages for protection from the voles and squirrels).  Well, the daffodils don't need protection, but the tulips and hyacinths do, and that causes a problem. 

If a plant the wildflower seeds in the far are now (as I should), they will be JUST growing when it is time to plant the spring-flowering bulbs in mid November.  Ack!  I would be walking all over the new plants.  I can't plant them now, as they won't arrive until early November. 

The middle area isn't a problem.  The Lychimastria can't be transplanted until they go dormant, and that will be early November.  So they and the spring-flowering bulbs go in at the same time.  The near area isn't a problem, because the half-sunny wildflowers will get sown in Spring and I can easily walk around the emerging bulbs then.

I'll have to think about how to manage the planting of that far area some more.  I'm not worried; there is always a solution to any problem.  I just have to find it.

And I have more on the landscaping To-Do-List.  200 crocus bulbs to plant in vole-proof cages.  But that's for the next post...

Change In Wildflower Design

I was looking at the 2 areas I was surrounding by inset edging, and realized an error.  I had intended the Lachymistra Firecracker, a very pretty purple-leaf and yellow-flower plant, to be enclosed in a small area I could mow around and prevent from spreading. 

But I laid out 2 large areas.  OOPS!  So I had 5 40' lengths of edging; 3 in one shape and 2 in a circle.  Time to change that.  I changed things to a 40' circumference circle for the Lachymistra Firecracker; an 80' circumference circle for the transplanted Black-Eyed Susans, Purple Coneflowers,  Dwarf Butterfly Bushes, Knockout Roses, and Goldenrods; and a kidney-bean shape of 80' circumference for the wildflower seeds and some local weeds with rather nice flowers (they may be volunteer Pinks from some other yard). 

So now the edging looks like this...

The spaces between the edging are mowable widths...

And nice walkable paths...

I finished the digging of the trench to set the edging down in for the farthest back part today.  It was exhausting.  The trench had to be edged with a garden fork to get through the stones or regular spade where the soil was stone-free, loosened in the center with a heavy pick, and loose soil removed with a trenching shovel.

And I'm only 2/5ths done! 

But an hour a day gets things progressing.  3 more hours will do all the edging-trench digging, and who can't use more exercise? 

Heavy Rain On New Lawn

After more than a month without and measurable rain, I was beginning to think I could ignore the possibility of rain in my new lawn plans.  Silly me...

I got the new lawn soil leveled and planted in the front yard in plenty of time for the soil to settle and the new grass to emerge and set down roots.  The back yard waited.  I got the back leveled and seeded about 10 days ago.  The grass barely emerged when we finally got some rain.  And of course, not just some rain, but a lot of it.  We have had 3.75" so far.

That left me 3 concerns for the front yard.

First, would serious heavy rain overflow the drainage easement and wash some of my new soil away at the edge?  Second, would the heavy rain wash some of the new grass away and/or create runoff ditches?  Third, would I discover new places of standing water (part of what my soil-raising efforts were intended to stop)?

The first is uncertain.  I can't see any drainage edge erosion, but I can't get too close to it to be sure.  The new soil is too soft to walk on to go investigate.

The second worked fine.  There was a full day of light drizzle and that settled the soil a bit, and the soil was so dry it soaked up almost all the rain.  The grass seems to have stayed in place.

The third isn't so good.  I have a 4'x10' standing puddle in the front of the lawn.  OK, there is supposed to be a "swale" there ("a slight depression for directing water runoff", in my case to storm drains at either side of the front of the yard).  But it ISN'T supposed to have a low spot that holds water. 

It wasn't obvious by eyeballing the new soil level, but water never lies.  There is a low spot that won't drain in either direction.  So I need some more soil to add there.  I don't need much; a cubic yard (cubic meter) should do fine.  I just need the rain to flow off toward either drain.  It could be worse; my adjacent upstreet neighbor has an actual concrete channel for a swale (makes for awkward mowing, it keeps filling with dirt and debris, and it is ugly).

The back yard did not fare so well with the rain.  I planted the grass seed there 8 days ago and it was barely up when the rains hit.  The day before the rains, there was a uniform fuzz of new grass.  Today, there are large bare spots and a few channels 2" deep where the rainfall flowed downslope.  I'm going to have to relevel that and plant new seed.  Fortunately, a local garden expert addressed that very question online Saturday and said there was still time to plant new grass seed in a week after the soil dries out a bit.  Of course, that's assuming we don't get another hard rain in a week (none forecast though).

Well, nothing is ever guaranteed when planting anything.  Sometimes, you have to do it again.  At least I'm not depending on grass as food, LOL!  If I was a cow, this would be a lot more serious.

Tree Removal, Day 3 (Part 2)

Well, OK, time to wrap this up. I'm ready to start posting about other projects...

A 2nd crew came out for the final part.  They had a different tree trunk "grabber".  The previous day's grabber had hydraulic problems.  So did the new one.  Apparently, from what I overheard, the hydraulic lines can fall loose and then get cut if the crew isn't careful.  I have some square foot spots with hydraulic fluid on my lawn which can't be good for the grass.  I will have to replace some soil...

They finally had to use a small fork lift attachment (which must have used a different set of hyrdaulic lines) to move the last sections tree trunk away.  It worked well enough.

BTW, see the shadow in the lower right above?  That's my deck, with me resting my camera on the deck rail for stability, and me wearing my straw hat.  Cool!

With the last pieces of tree trunk removed, the crew brought the stump-grinder into play.  It a 2' diameter circular saw but with teeth like a small T Rex.  The operator hanles 3 joy-sticks like some super arcade-game-player.  He stands behind a shield, and wears super goggles for protection. 

I found that hilarious.  He wears the goggles because he can't see through the viewing screen in the protection door.  He can't see through the viewing screen because all the flying wood chips abrade new ones in just a few days of use.  Doesn't seem like a really well-designed product to me...

Anyway, the grinder blade is moved back and forth, up and down, forward and back (three directions, so 3 joysticks) and can take off about 1/2" of wood at a time.  So 10" of remaining tree trunk and going 6" below ground level took a while.  2 hours or so, actually.  It finally looked like this...

Well, they did remove the other tree pieces, but I can't find the good picture of the "after" right now.

The grinder guy wasn't thrilled to have to go below ground level on the stump (all that extra work), but I had made sure that was part of the quote, so I insisted.  Getting the stump below ground level hastens rotting and prevents the roots from sending up endless shoots.

They insisted that they had to spread the wood chippings out as company practice, so I didn't argue.  I'll take care of that later. 

All the gardening experts say that raw wood chips are NOT good for spreading around plants and shrubs.  First, the decomposing wood uses up all the nitrogen in the soil.  Second, it attracts slugs and snails that will eat your plants.  Third, "artillery mushrooms" love to grow in it and they spread their spores by exploding (hence the name "artillery") and the stuff leaves bright sticky pink material up to 4' away.  Not a problem where my chips are, but I've seen pictures of the stuff staining cars and house siding.

They did a great cleanup job!  They not only raked the entire worksite of all leaves and sticks, they got up on the roof and blew all the debris off there.  Then they even swept the gutter screens clean!  Finally they blew the sawdust and debris off the deck. 

Even with the delays from the equipment hydraulic lines on 2 pieces of equipment, they did an outstanding job.  I'll forgive the small puddles of hydraulic fluid leakage on the lawn as collateral damage and repair that myself.  The compacted soul from the equipment running all over it needs repair anyway.  I'll dig up the oily spots and trash it, then work the entire area over with my roto-tiller.

And I have an excavation crew coming in next week.  Maybe they will do that for me as part of the project.  I mean, they are digging up soil and disposing of a lot of it (a ridge of weeds, clay and gravel) anyway, and then bringing in 2 truckloads of topsoil to raise the sunken front lawn, so a bucketloader could dig up the "soiled soil" and replace it with a little of the new topsoil.

We'll see.  They are coming out here next week (day unknown).  Their work is tricky to schedule as sometimes other jobs go fast or slow, and I get only a days notice of when they will arrive. 

More about THAT next time!

Tree Removal, Day 3

By the end of yesterday, they had the oak tree completely cut down.  As I guessed, at some point they would simply cut off the trunk at the bottom and let it fall over.  It's sure easier to hold those big chain saws and cut down rather than sideways.

The rope at the top is so the guys can pull the trunk over away from the fence and deck.

And down it comes!

They went right at the trunk to cut it into manageable sections.

And there it is in pieces.  

Looks like one of those 6' party subs cut into individual parts...

The view is sure different!  There was sunlight on the ground where there hasn't been for at least a century.  

But it got a bit humorous after that.  The boss came by and told them to cut the stump lower because it would take too long to grind it all down.  Then he told me a stump grinder crew would by here "tomorrow" (today, now) for the grinding and final cleanup.  Then he left.

It wasn't the best decision he ever made.  They cut off 1' of the stump easily enough.

But the next foot drove them crazy.  And their problem baffled me too.  First, one guy cut all around the trunk as he had in the upper foot section.  But it just wouldn't come loose.  Well, his circle around the trunk was more of an upward spiral.   It was like 2 teams tunneling through a mountain and missing the meeting point by a few dozen yards.  So he went back at it.  And missed again...

This went on for 30 minutes.  I watched from the safety of the deck.  Far be it for me to tell them how to do their jobs.  Though I did wonder a bit watching one guy who didn't quite seem to know how to use the grabber point under the chain saw to lever it for best cutting and I saw another guy trying to give him advice.  I couldn't understand what they were saying (the crew is hispanic - more on that below).

Their problem baffled me at first.  I could see that the 3' chain saw blade could easily reach to the middle, and they had a couple wedges in place to keep the weight of the cut portions of the trunk from pinching the blade.

They finally tried wedging the uncut portion loose.  But they only had 2 wedges and that wasn't working.  So I went and offerred them my 5' iron breaker bar which they accepted gratefully.  Even that wasn't enough.

I could see from the deck that the cut section would rock east/west and north/south and I went down and showed them where the uncut part had to be.  Well, you don't have to be a tree removal expert to understand basic mechanics...  But I wasn't able to communicate that well enough with hand gestures.  So I tried another series of gestures suggesting they cut the top piece like a tic-tac-toe board so they could find the uncut part.  Now luck with that either...

Here's the part about my spanish-speaking ability.  I took Spanish in High School.  I could speak the written words well enough, and with a passable accent.  But that was 50 years ago, was mostly written, and I barely passed the class then.   So my ability to speak to the crew was limited.  I remember some phrases.  The most useful one for me is "Yo hablo muy muy poco Espanol" ("I speak very very little Spanish").  One guy asked "Como Esta?" (How are you"?) in the morning and it was an hour before I remembered the correct reply ("Estamos bien, gracias" - "I am well, thank you").   I used that to him later and got a smile and a thumbs up.  Well, at least he didn't laugh.  And when one of them waved at me and asked "agua?, I brought out a pitcher of cold water. 

So I watched them struggle with it for another 45 minutes.  I wish I had thought to bring out my laptop and use "google translate" to get some simple phrases that would have helped, but that only occurred to me after they left.

But they did finally manage to break the uncut part loose.  Do I need to say that the uncut part was exactly where I pointed to earlier? 

The 2nd half of Day 3 tomorrow...

Tree Removal, Day 2

Ok, actually, I'm starting with the work done yesterday.  The first day, they got the sweet gum tree removed, and the lower half of all the oak tree branches.  It looked like this after Monday...

I couldn't even close the fence gates to let the cats outside for the late afternoon.

The pictures of the guy climbing to the top of the tree didn't come out at all (drat) except for this one, and you can't see much there.

 But by the time he was done (took about 3 hours), it looked like this...

Then the bucket crane guy went to work again.

The trunk got lower and lower.  And when THOSE chunks hit the ground, the cats hid deeper in the bedroom.

Lower...

A piece falling, and that's 3' in diameter...

A dragonfly took advantage of the rope...

And I'll stop there for today.  The final pics tomorrow (I hope)!

Tree Removal, Day 1

This has been quite an adventure.  It's taken longer than I thought (or that the contractor estimated).  Part of the problem is that the "grabber" (the equipment that grabs chunks of cut-down trees in a huge metal jaw) developed hydraulic fluid problems, and in spite of their onsite attempts to fix it, it just wouldn't work properly.  Their other grabber was at another job today, but will be here tomorrow.

I've been taking pictures all of both days, and will be posting them here now and for a few days to come.  Here is the original view of the massive white oak...

They started with the sweet gum tree, since it was in the way of the large equipment.  I'm glad I wanted it removed, since they couldn't have gotten to the oak with it there anyway.

They cut off all the side branches first.

That tree was easy and they had it down in just over an hour.  That bucket crane goes REALLY high!

I got a nice action shot of them cutting the trunk down in pieces.

And there goes the rest of the trunk...

 The stump color surprised me.  The core is a small light brown area, then there is a dark area, then a light one.  It must have had some extremely different growing conditions that changed suddenly.  My guess is that the light area represents the tree getting a lot more sunlight after I moved in and had 2  shading big oaks removed.

But, it developed some problems later.  I suspected, and the cut sections showed, that the tree was dying from the top down.  So better it was gone now...

Then they started on the oak.  Now, these guys have see a LOT of trees, but even they were impressed!  I hated to have it removed, but it has been dropping more and more 6' diameter branches the past coule years, and I was becoming convinced it was dying and would fall over on the house (as the prevailing winds would blow it in that direction).

They cut off the smaller branches and push them in a safe direction.  The larger branches take a bit more preparation.  They tie a rope (which is looped up over higher branches) to the branch, twist the rope around the tree trunk (for friction), and then just one guy can can the cut branch from falling while releasing the rope slowly.  A couple other guys grab the branch near ground level and guide it to a safe landing (away from the house and fence).  I thought I had a picture of the twisted rope trick, but I guess that was one of the dozens of blurry ones I had to delete.

They use a neat knot I am familiar with from Boy Scouting called a "bowlin-on-a-bight" .  It makes a loop in a rope that it tight under weight, but undoes easily afterwards.  It is the knot commonly used to lift people from cliffs and such.  Its one of those "the rabbit runs into his hole, circles around, comes back up and then dives down again" kind of things.  There is an odd pattern of wrist looping movements that I recognized.

More tomorrow...