Monday, March 21, 2011

We're Stumped

It's been looming over us. More accurately, it's been looming over our house. Since the day we moved in. Well, it's bothered us since the day we moved in but it's probably been there for at least 40 years. It is our approximately 70-foot locust tree. And Keith decided it was time for it to go.


All the wires to our house were in the midst of its branches. Keith was having nightmares about it falling on our roof and crushing us in our bed in the middle of the night. The neighbor was griping about all the pollen it drops in the spring and the dirty little leaves that come down in the fall. It had to go. But not without a hug first.

I officially join the ranks of tree huggers
Keith called a tree service that was recommended by both the neighbor and a friend and hired him to cut down the tree and grind the stump and roots. He was instructed to mark out the roots he wanted ground down in the yard with spray paint.



To save some cash and fill our fire pit, Keith asked that the wood be left so he could chop it up for firewood. I think he grossly underestimated the amount of wood left by a 70-foot tree.





That's the pile after about 2 hours of splitting the smaller pieces. The pile now reaches the windows of the garage, and there is a small stack in the garage. Still a long way to go but with the help of our friend's chain saw (thanks, Jamie!), Keith made a lot of progress yesterday. We'll be sharing some with Jamie and with the neighbor because we really can't use it all.

Keith's tip of the day: If you sit around all winter, your first outdoor project probably shouldn't be turning an entire tree into kindling. And if you have to do it, stretch first.


My tip of the day: Be pregnant. No one can hassle you about only moving one small piece of wood at a time to the pile or saying the wheelbarrow is too heavy.

As soon as all the wood is out of the way, the man from the tree service will be back to take care of the stump and roots.


And we will be sitting around our fire pit all summer long. Probably for the next decade if we actually want to get this all this wood used up.

1 comment:

  1. I would also have been worried about this big tree,don't need that on the house! It would have been nice if you had been heating with wood. No problem getting rid of it then.Blessings jane

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...