Good-Bye, Old Friend

The 90+ year-old elm in our yard apparently lived quite a long time with Dutch Elm Disease. Last May we noticed several large branches didn't leaf out, and the new leaves on other branches started to turn brown. Not a good sign. My husband and I were in Spain for three weeks in June. When we came back, all the leaves on the entire tree were brown and crispy. The elm was dead.

My husband and his cousin (who is a licensed arborist) used to remove trees with a local tree company, and on their own when they started their own company. They still have all the rigging, saws, etc. but bad timing throughout the summer and fall prevented them from cutting the elm down last year. So it stayed all winter, slowly losing branches and bark.

Yes, we gave these two chain saws.

We were finally able to coordinate a weekend to take down the elm. Unfortunately, the one weekend that everyone was available was cold (high of about 40*F) and windy (20mph steady with gusts up to 30mph). Oh, and it snowed about an inch the night before. Wonderful conditions to remove a tree. 

They only worked from 10am to about 2pm on Saturday because the wind became too strong. They picked up again Sunday at 1pm and had everything down by 6pm.

Because of its location in the yard, it had to taken down in small pieces to prevent the lilac hedge, the house, gardens and existing trees from being damaged. With a series of ropes, pulleys, harnesses, and other things I'm not familiar with in regards to tree removal, my husband, his father, and his cousin pieced out the elm.

The next series of photos are of the last piece that required a saw. It was considerably large and leaning away from where they wanted it to land. So they connected the rope to the van's trailer hitch and pulled to make the piece fall in the right direction.

And it did land in the right place. I regret not getting this on video; it made a really great sound.

All throughout the process they were piling up the smaller branches and fallen bark next to the fire pit. We had a nice fire all weekend.

 Here is the pseudo-time lapsed progression:

So we had all these logs of varying sizes strewn about the lawn. We knew of two people who wanted the wood, but somehow the word spread. At least five separate parties came armed with saws, trucks, vans, trailers, and took what they wanted. By Wednesday afternoon 90% of the logs were gone. We never had to move them off our own property. I like our end of the deal.

Except there are still sticks strewn over the lawn and stuck in the shrubs and trees. And there's a big hole in our landscape. Being on the corner of a busy intersection and across from the bank, we used to feel like we were on display or on stage before..... that hedge needs to get a-growin'.