Next Project

My next project is to rebuild an old bench.

The wood was cheap pine when I bought it and rotted fast.  The metal frames are sound.  I will replace the pine with cedar.  That should last 15 years.

And I have a good place to put it facing my fence flowerbed, underneath a a small shady tree.

Compost Bin Onsite, Part 2

Well. last you saw, I had a corner established.  I gave those posts a few days to dry while I placed the other frames around the general spots and assembled the screws and tools for the next part. 

After the existing posts seemed solidly settled, I went after the rest of the structure.  Getting the left back frame attached was easy.  I just clamped on a good flat 4x4 post across the back and the left back frame HAD to be straight with the right back one.  Then I attached the left side frame so it was square to the back.

I have a 2'x2' square, so it was pretty definite.  That gave me everything in place except the front center post (which is "there" but just sitting loose in the hole).  I filled the other holes with clay, soaked them, tamped the soil hard to make a nice clayey mud, and let it sit for another 2 days. 

The board across the front was screwed on to keep everything upright and level while the clay hardened.  There are clamps at the back for the same reason.

The next day (leaving all the clamps and the board in place for stability), I went about setting the front center post in place.  I will admit it just drove me crazy!  I set a string line across the front of the 2 front posts, so it was obvious where the front of the center post HAD to be.

That at least gave me the dimensions for the divider frame between the 2 parts of the bin.  Because it was between 2 posts instead of outside of them, it had to be made last by onsite measurement.  Given the variations of lumber, there was no way I could figure the exact size of the center divider until everything else was in place.

The exact size doesn't matter and I don't even recall what it was but say 42.25" just to have a number...  I measured to the string across the front posts and then subtracted the thickness of the posts already between.  Had to be perfect, right?

And the frame I built to fit that spot was perfect.  Square, solid, flat; best one of the whole project!  Well, it should be, I had the experience of making the other 4 before to get it right...

But nothing wanted to fit properly.  The hole for the front center post was pre-dug and in the wrong spot by 6".  The center front post had to be, well, "centered".  There are going to be removable slats that drop down into slots in the front posts. 

The problem was that the center post should be exactly between the 2 outside front posts, the divider frame should be square to the back and front, and the frame and post should be level vertically.  I could get any 2 of those to work, but not all 3 at the same time.

A craftsman would have no trouble, a good carpenter might need a little "push".  I'm not that good...

Have you ever played a gsme called "telephone"?  A dozen people stand in a circle.  One whispers a short sentence to the person on the right (Like "I will be dining with the Queen tonight").  It gets whispered around the circle.  By the time it comes back to the originator, it may be "I hope I'll be dunking the squid in fright".

My carpentry is like that.  Every step gets a wee bit off perfection, and by the time I get to the last part. it is 1" too low and 1" too far.  That's why I have clamps and pry-bars and screws.  The last piece always has to be tortured into place!  I start with a perfect design and end with brute force...

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's "just" a compost bin.  Perfection doesn't matter all that much.  But its the principle of the thing.  I am, by nature, a builder.  I am also plagued by accumulated small errors. 

I understand that part of it is that I do these projects without any help.  I can't be on both ends of an 8' board, and I can't to 2 things at once by myself.  It is still disappointing, though.  I expect better of myself in spite of the difficulties.

BUT, brute force DOES make up for some errors.  A few screwed-on braces replace a hand, a few clamps make boards match up evenly, and enough screws will hold everything in place while the boards stretch internally (and they do) until things work.

Before I finally set the muddy clay around the front center post, I measured the distances between the left and center post and the right and center post.  They were exactly the same.  It looked perfect!  I was thrilled and relieved.  I soaked the clay, tamped it, and remeasured it.  Exact same distances.

The next afternoon, the clay had hardened.  I checked the vertical level of the front post, checked that the center divider was square to the back, checked that the front of the front post was precisely in line with the front corner posts.  Nothing could be wrong.

HAH!  The distance between the left and center post is 1/4" longer than the distance between the right and center posts.  I could cry...  The only explanation is that the universe is testing my sanity. 

On the other hand, it is utterly solid, completely functional, and should last for 20 years.  At which point I will be 87 and too old to consider rebuilding it.

The last part of the project is to make the slats that fit into the slots in the front posts.  That's for the next post...

Compost Bin Onsite

I got the site leveled.  Well, almost; the yard slopes, so nothing is ever perfectly level even when trying.  But it was as close as I could get it without making terraces.

I got the parts stacked outside.  I had added some diagonal braces for strength with some leftover ballisters from the deck.  There is a reason I keep leftovers around.  Always some use for them eventually.  

The braces were fun to make.  I actually got them cut to have points fitted into the corners.  Took some geometry.  If the frames were squares, it would have been easy (45 degree cuts).  But they are rectangles.  I eventually figured out that they had to be 55 degrees cuts on one side and 35 degrees on the other (55 and 35 equals 90 degrees).  My 11th grade geometry teacher would be proud of me!  Who says that stuff is useless?

That's part of the fun of building stuff myself; solving problems like that. Building it for the long-term, I both glued and screwed the braces.  Screwing the braces into the frames was some work, but I won't bore you with the details.

BTW, the picture below looks like there are X braces, but that is just 2 of them stacked together.  Each frame has one brace.  That is sufficient.

The mower and cart were good for hauling the parts.  Here it all is onsite.

Then I stuck the posts in the holes I had dug.  It gave me a visual on the size. 

The first requirement was to establish a corner.  It was harder than I expected.  I had measured carefully, but nothing goes according to plan.  I forgot the posts were on the INSIDE of the frame, so I had the holes 4" too far apart.  I had drawn it all on graph paper, but the scale was too small for me to notice the difference of 4".

I'm used to adjustments.  "Design in concept, build in reality".  So I made the post holes larger in the direction of the error.

With my trusty 4' level and some bricks for spacers, I got the first post level, and then attached a back and a side with countersunk screws.  Seriously, if I'm going through all this effort, I might as well do it right.  Pilot holes and countersunk holes for the screw heads prevents splitting the wood.  5 minutes of extra work means years of more solid posts.

I filled the holes around the posts with the clay soil, soaked it, and tamped the clay down around the posts.  When that dries, it will be as good as concrete.

The important part was to get the first corner post and 2 frames attached level and squared in all directions.  From that, all the other posts will be easier.  That board on top is temporarily screwed on to hold the posts and sides in place while the clay dries.

It may rain tomorrow, so I don't know if I can do much there tomorrow.  That's OK, I have other work to do.  My "To Do" list is way too long...

Yardwork Again

I wasn't sure I was gong to be doing much yardwork the rest of the year.  I usually try to do at least one useful thing each day.  Sometimes I don't, but that is the goal anyway. 

So when I twisted my right knee in early April, and it was difficult to walk the first couple of weeks, I grudgingly waited for it to heal.  I do these sorts of injuries every so often but generally heal quickly enough.  I'm used to it.  You live on your own, you push yourself to do more than you should sometimes, and there is the occasional time your body says hey ease off on me a bit. 

It has happened before.  10 years ago, I casually tossed a rock at a squirrel and strained my rotator cuff and I could barely raise my arm over my shoulder for 4 months!  But it healed fine and I kind of expect that.

But this time, April rolled into May, and May into June and eventually September and it was better but not normal.  Some projects got delayed.  I had planned to repaint the bathrooms and kitchen, but crawling all around washing the walls, putting tape along all the edges and then doing the actual painting seemed too awkward.  But it could wait.

I had also planned to use my gas-powered weed-whacker with the steel cutters to eliminate the backyard brush and brambles that sprung up after I had a few trees removed  several years ago.  That didn't happen.

A few weeks ago, my right knee suddenly felt much better.  Not perfect, but good enough, and I started some minor yard projects and felt ready to do more.  I got some work done.   Mostly de-clutterring the basement the computer room, and the cat room.

And then I went and did something to the left knee.  No idea what I did.  It felt like I had banged it against a door frame, but for 2 weeks, I had 2 bad knees.  I was worried I was sufferring some serious problem (like Lyme Disease affects your joints, or longer term problems like arthritis). 

But I woke up 2 days ago and the left knee was back to normal and the right knee wasn't bad.  I could walk around pretty much normal.

So I had found a sealed bag of grass seed in the basement left over from last year .  I mowed the front yard grass very short.  Today I raked all the loose grass and dumped it where I plan to put a flowerbed island around a large rock and tree in order to smother the grass and weeds and leave some improved soil.  Then I spread the grass weeds all around.  And then I spent 90 minutes carefully spraying straight down onto the grass to beat the grass seeds onto the soil surface and give them enough water to germinate.

It is a bit late to do that.  But I had the seeds and they won't last another year.  And we are having a warm spell, so the seeds should germinate if they are still viable.  There are 2 bare spots, so I will know if they germinate.  At least that is SOMETHING done.

And both knees felt just fine after all that.  So that's good.

The next things to do are planting Daffodils in mid November, tilling some dead areas of the flowerbeds, and eliminating weeds in the paths between the framed veggie beds.  

Are you familiar with those long strips of brown paper used as packing material?  I've been saving the longest strips for several years.  The stuff comes all twisted and crinkled, but I untwist it and lay in on the basement floor and use a push broom to flatten it out.  That works very well.  Then I fold it up in 4' lengths and put a piece of plywood on it to flatten it further and keep it out of the way.  I have several hundred linear feet of it now.

It seems like great stuff to put between the framed beds, on top of weedy dead sections of the flowerbeds, and on top of all the Spring bulbs to smother weeds (with shredded bark on top).  It will probably decompose by Spring, and in not, it will certainly be easy to pull up at planting time.

It may not kill all the weeds, but it sure won't do them any good.  I am reminded of a W C Fields vaudeville joke where he says he swallowed a few moths and said he swallowed a couple of mothballs to get rid of them.  The sidekick asks if it did any good.  Fields says "well it sure couldn't have helped them any".  (Do not do this at home, mothballs are toxic).

My point is that the brown paper cover is worth trying.  If it works, GREAT!  If not, it is easy to remove and will make good compostable material after 5 months exposure to rain and melting snow all Winter and early Spring. 

Gardeners might object that  covers the soil gives voles safe space to run around under.  I did cover part of my flowerbeds with black plastic 10 years ago, and they did love it.  They ate every tulip bulb, safe from predators.  But this time, there won't be anything for them to eat.  Well, the weeds, and if they want to eat the roots of those, they are not welcome, I encourage them.  Otherwise, they don't touch Daffodils or Daylilies (toxic to mammals), the Tulips and Hyacinths are in wire cages they can't get into, and the seeds from the birdfeeder will be on top of the paper where they waill actually have trouble getting to the spilled seeds. EVIL LOL!

So I am getting into the yardwork late, but not impossibly late.  The last project, which is to plant specimen trees that won't grow tall enough to shade my garden and flowerbeds is still in reach.  By "specimen trees", I mean Korean Dogwoods, Sourwoods, Wisteria shrubs, and Star Magnolias.  Those will shade out the brush and brambles like the taller trees used to do, but not cause shade problems across the yard.

I will surround the new trees with used carpeting.  That has really worked well for me over the years.  Rain soaks right through, but weeds won't grow up through it.  And it it is usually free.  Just look for some place being renovated and ask for the old carpet.  They will usually just give it away. 

OK, I'm off to buy some specimen tree saplings...

Back, I ordered 3 Sourwood trees and 2 Korean Dogwoods.  Sourwood trees are great in Fall.  They have small grapelike clusters of yellow berries and burgundy leaves and grow to about 25'.  The Korean Dogwoods are great in Springs, don't have the same disease problems as American Dogwoods, and spread sideways.  I have one on the shady side of the house that has been happily existing for 25 years at 20 feet, and I will take some tip cuttings next June.  It has pink flowers. The dogwoods I ordered have white flowers, so that will make a nice change.



I also filled in all the screw and nail holes in the main bathroom a week ago

Post-Snow Post

Well, I sure am glad I have my snowblower!  After the 2010 storms, I finally bought one.  Buying one in the Spring, though, I had time to do some research and get a good price.  Granted, they were "last year's models".  But they don't change much.  Really, what can they do other than make the blades that throw the snow heated so snow doesn't stick?  And I expect that will be a while.

I read in an article that one can expect any future event to be 25% "more" than what one has experienced before.  So when it came to the abilty to handle deep snow, I took my deepest snow and added 25% to that depth.

Good thing I did, because this Toro 24' wide and 20" tall input was barely enough!!!  And in a couple of drifts in the driveway, I had to tilt it up slightly and make 2 passes.  And THAT was while the snow was still falling Saturday after lunch!

But it worked perfectly.  The snow was dry and powdery and went "up, up, up, and away"!  The swirling wind made me keep rotating the output chute right and left (and I DID get snow back at me a few times).  Five passes up and down the driveway had it nearly cleared.  

Sunday morning, I went out and blew off the 9" of snow that had fallen overnight (6") and the 3" that drifted in with the wind.  Each time took only 20 minutes!

And removing the snow before it started to freeze on the bottom really helped.  The snowblower gets down to about 1/4".  The sunlight gets through that little snow and hits the black asphalt which warms enough to melt the remaining snow above it.  The next day, it was all clear, like this...

If I had to shovel the snow by hand, it would have been 2 three hour efforts; maybe 3 efforts.

Aside from that, we are all doing fine here.  The cats have a small area to step outside on the deck.  It took a while to shovel 4' though the 3' snowdrift (and throwing the shoveled snow 4' over the side of the deck was some work.  But I know to pace myself and take rest breaks.  I extended the path out toward the end of the deck a few feet every few hours on Monday, and completed it Tuesday.

You may have noticed a box from Chewy in the top picture.  Naturally, we were running out of canned cat food just as the storm hit.  But a Saturday online order arrived here this afternoon while there were still 2 cans left.  Good timing. 

Well, I WOULD have just driven to the local PetSmart for some if needed.  The roads are clear "enough".  But it was nice to have 5 cases of food delivered to the garage door!

Bye Bye Ridge!

There has been this ridge in the backyard since I moved here 29 years ago (and by coincidence, this is the very week I moved here).  It has always been a problem.  Too sloped and uneven to mow.  A few years after I moved in, I was able to get it mostly cleared of scrub trees and vines.  But they kept growing back and English ivy slowly took over.  I cut back the tree seedlings many times and even painted herbicide on the cut trunks, but it hardly slowed them down.

I finally contacted an excavator who came out and gave me a quote for leveling the ridge and raising a portion of the front yard that flooded after heavy rains.  I accepted the quote on the spot and they said they would do the work the following week.  When they didn't arrive, I called only to be told they were too busy.

So I contacted some other excavators who decided the job was too small.  Only one agreed (reluctantly - he is 45 minutes away from here) and would not come out to give a quote - I would have to accept the cost afterwards. 

Then, Monday afternoon, the original contractor called to say they had a break in their schedule and could do the job the next morning if I was still interested.  I was, and they did!

I am delighted with the results.  They did even more than I thought they could (considering 2 small trees I wanted to save).

It looked like this to start...

They started by scraping the scrub tree seedlings and ivy off the top and sides.

Dumping it in a truck for disposal.  You can see the amazingly long ivy roots hanging down.  No wonder that stuff is so hard to kill!

The ridge was already nicely lowered from just that.

I would have had them just pile the scraped ivy all up in a corner to compost, but there was enough soil mixed in that they probably would have just kept growing.

See the soil dust rising from the bucket?  We havent exactly had drought here (lots of rain in June, but almost none since then).  Even 4' deep, the soil was dusty-dry.

The equipment is cool (literally).  The Bobcat cabin is sealed, air-conditioned, and has a stereo system inside!

They carefully worked around the 2 trees, watching for the 1st sign of main roots.  This one is a holly tree.  It's hard to kill.  When I first cleared the ridge so many years ago, I accidently cut it down and it regrew multiple trunks from that mistake. 

After all the scrub tree saplings and ivy were gone, they heaped up the remaining soil to examine the quality.  We had expected the ridge to be unusable gravel and clay, but it turned out to be good sandy loam so they moved it out as a base to raise the sunken front lawn.

Then they dumped 2 truckloads of topsoil on that!  They spent a good bit of time grading it carefully.   The whole area is now a foot higher than the drainage easement at the property line.  Unless we have a really severe hurricane before the grass I'll plant sets in good roots, my front yard flooding should be over.

They even spent time carefully smoothing the added soil to the existing lawn.

Here is the new front lawn...

And here is the new back yard!

I don't plan to cover the entire area in lawn.  Lawn is boring...  I plan to put a mix of Spring and Fall blooming azaleas around the inside edges of the trees and wildflowers and some long-lived perennials in  between them.  It will be fun to decide exactly what to plant where...

I need to drag out the roto-tiller first.  Even though the Bobcat has track treads to reduce soil compaction, the new surface is still too packed to just plant in.  The front yard will just get grass.

I wish I had had this done 20 years ago!

Garden Enclosure Screen Door

The garden enclosure door is giving me trouble.  The posts holding it keep getting out of alignment.  Sometimes the top sticks.  Sometimes, the latch won't catch.

I've bought some additional pvc pipes to help hold it in place, but I had to get the frame in alignment first.  One post had to be raised 1/4", and that was trickier than I thought.  Since it is stuck in the ground 2', the idea was to pry it up 1/4" and then hold it there while nature lets the soil below it expand and fill in.

So the first part was to lift the post.  Easier said than done.  I dripped water in around it for an hour, and that did loosen the post.  But lifting the post isn't just pulling it up a bit.  There had to be something to hold it up the 1/4".  And I don't mean to suggest that I am strong enough to just pull it up that much.

I had the idea of screwing a 2x4" board to the post and prying on the bottom of that board.  That would work, but how would I hold it there?  I tried putting a 4x4" post against the top of the frame and then lifting it with shims.  I did that, but the frame didn't rise.

All I was doing was pushing the post into the dirt...

Arggh...

And if I put a board under the 4x4" post, that was too tight to make it fit under.  I had to re-think it.  And the 4x4" post I was using to raise door frame was the wrong length by 1".

AHA!  I set a scrap piece on board in the screen doorway and set the post that was "just" too long on the board at an angle.  Pounding that 4x4" post that was at an angle, toward the post I wanted to lift worked!

Look at it another way.  The door frame post and the ground made a right angle, with the bracing post resting on a board at the bottom making the hypotenuse.  By pounding the bottom of the bracing board with a small sledgehammer, I pushed the top of the door frame up the required 1/4".  Hurray!

But how to hold it up?  The bracing post prevented the door from closing...

Well, that baffled me for a few minutes.  But then I realized that if I screwed on a board near the bottom of the door frame post  on the opposite side, it would hold it up for ever.  Well, I didn't need "forever", just long enough for wet soil to settle below the door frame post.

SO...   I set a cinder block next to the door frame post, stomped on it a few times to settle it into the soil so it wouldn't sink under pressure, and put a scrap piece of 2x4" board atop the cinder block.  And I screwed that board into place.

So the post holding the latch side of the screen door (that I had just raised 1/4") won't settle back down (the piece of 2x4" is resting on a cinder block that won't settle into the ground and the 2x4" board is screwed solidly into the door frame post).

I can leave all that in place forever.  Its not in the way of the door closing.

But the latch doesn't "catch",  I can solve THAT.  A small piece of aluminum fill fix that.  Actually some would a plastic credit card.

Just accept that the door and latch will now work, and that the screen door closes as smoothly as silk!

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...