Trees 1 thru 5, gone - Video

...Ok, anyone who has ever been to my house knows I have *a lot* of pine trees, and 1 other tree, a Live Oak. I believe we have 15, massive, Virginia Pines, on our little plot of land alone. You've all heard me state my now extreme disdain of trees, of almost any sort, and you've seen pictures of the thousands (literally, not joking) of bags of pine straw we've raked up. We've tried to grow grass to no avail, and so we send our kids out to play in dirt and pokey pine cones. But not anymore....!!

I will give it to you - this post has an excessive amount of pictures of tree felling. Perhaps more than a normal person would take, or post, but hey, I've waited for this day for 8 years now, so, you're gonna look at the pictures! It makes me BEYOND ECSTATIC to announce that as of this posting, 5 Pine trees and 1 large Live Oak branch are dead and buried...or chipped into a nearly microscopic pieces.

All of you in the know about the cost of removing these trees...no, we suddenly did not fall into thirty thousand dollars. But we have friends worth twice that - and more! We sort of did a barter system. We have friends that can climb, limb and cut massive trees...and Brian can remodel bathrooms etc. :-) So we've traded services - work for work. And lots of other friends who, although not being paid or even bartering with us, came and helped out - which was amazing. We are privileged to know the nicest and most generous people, bar none. We are incredibly blessed by you, our friends. Thank you from the bottom of our (now pine straw free!) hearts!

I am labeling the trees, as 1 through 5 - in the order that they fell, not the order that they stood in the yard. I should have named them. Hmmm. A thought for trees 6 - 15:-)

Friday evening, "Tree Climber" Tom limbed Tree #1, it was the largest (girth and height) of the 5 trees they felled. It was more than 7 storeys tall. Maybe more than 8 too? Hard to tell exactly. He was WAY up there. The "black" part of the video is from this tree top coming down

Friday evening, Brian stays safe on the ground:-) They were limbing so they could get ahead of the wood chipper, coming in the morning.

It got dark pretty fast, and bats were flying around Tom. Gross!

Top of the tree, still on. Just before it came quietly crashing down

Tree #3, topped, but still one funny branch hanging on! It literally makes me nauseous to see someone at the tippy top of a high tree, swaying in the breeze. These heights are nothing to laugh at.

Tree #1, the largest of the trees tackled on Saturday, is down. It literally shook the entire block. Neighbours many many doors down felt the vibrations of the "earthquake" and didn't know what was going on! (because apparently they are deaf and couldn't hear the LOUD woodchipper!)

Wood chipping. It's very dangerous! Actually EVERYTHING about today was dangerous!

Tree #3 is limbed, Tree#1 is down and Tree#2 is limbed

The Live Oak was taking over and had to have a few branches removed. This is men being...boys? Be careful Matt, we don't know that that will hold you!

The dumpster with the remains of 3 out of 5 trees in it. None of the stumps are ground up, only the limbs, we have people wanting the trunks in 16 ft sections, and we are happy to oblige them! I surely don't want it!

There is a local group of Christian young men called the Adventure Crew. We had a few young men (17&18 years old) and one of their fathers help us out for the ENTIRE day. They worked sooo hard and were an amazing help. I'm sure they could have thought of many better ways to spend their day, than to help strangers, but I am very grateful they did! I hope we were able to provide them with valuable life skills involving climbing with chainsaws and such. Lol. There is nothing more dangerous than the sound of that!

Tom and Doug taught the Adventure Crew boys quite a few things today about climbing and cutting down trees. Here is Judson, trying it out...he's really high up and doing well!

This is tree #4, limbed and ready to come down

only tree #5 is still standing. Look at my house. wowsers. Such a view has never been seen!!

The spoils - 3 stumps on this side of the house

And two stumps on this side!

Once we move the dumpster and the rest of the logs etc, I'll have to get a great picture of the front of my house, as never before! A wonderful and sincere thank you to Tom, Matt, the Adventure Crew 3, Tom R, Glory, Tom C and Doug - and to all their wives for sparing them for the day!