We had to have an old dead oak tree removed from the property last week. It just died, it had a tiny bit of rot inside the base and a fungus was growing on it. Because of its location near to the house, concrete driveway and fenced yard, we decided to hire a tree service to do it, they're insured and had a huge bucket truck which was really helpful as the limbs wanted to pull the tree towards the house. So Mike's Tree Service came out and in about 3 hours, on one of the hottest days of the year, trimmed off most of the branches and dropped the tree into the old garden area.
This is before-
This is during- most of the side branches are off now-
And this is after- 
There's a lot of work to be done, the guys cut up the biggest pieces as our chain saw isn't big enough to go halfway through the trunk.
This is just from some of the branches-
Main trunk and where it split into 3 big sections, there's another stack just like this one-
And just for size reference-
The really hard part will be wrestling these 200 pound chunks into the log splitter, poor Jim! Oh, he counted the rings in the base- 123 years old, approximately. Wow. Beeswax used to climb this tree, just to scare me to death, I think. I used to see him up in it but never saw him come down it, I have no idea how he did it.One funny coincidence- Mike, from the tree service is married to Debbie. She works at our vet's office. I asked him if he had seen the 4 white kittens that the clinic had raised and he said not only had he seen them, he'd helped feed them as they all took turns bringing the litter home at night to care for them. He had fed Nosey Parker! He was so excited to see her again and he was glad that we had her. He kissed her on her head. lol It was so cute.
Wow, that's one big tree!!!! Looks like you will have more than enough wood for the winter.
ReplyDelete123 years, I'd like to know what it's seen...
Oh, it's seen a lot, Lisa! For one thing, hippies lived on this property for a long time and this tree was right near the front door of the old house that we had torn down about 4 years ago. I'm sure it attended a lot of wild parties. Almost everyone in Eureka, when they ask where we live, said "oh, I've slept there!" lol It was a big party property and we found little odd buildings all over the place, gazebos, A-frames, etc. And lots of tires filled with dirt! ;)
ReplyDeleteWow, what a lot of wood. And what a fun history too.
ReplyDeleteI thought I'd pass on what my uncle did, in case you haven't split the hugest pieces yet and might want to do the same... There was a huge tree like this one growing on the family farm that also had to be cut down. So my uncle cut a few thin (1-2" thick) slices from near the bottom. Then he typed up little notes of various important dates in our family (births, marriages, deaths, as well as dates of funny happenings and more) and glued those near the appropriate ring. Next he covered the whole top with shellac or something, to protect the papers and make the top nice and smooth. And finally, stuck it on some kind of base and used it as a sofa end table. It is such a neat visual history of our family!!!
Thank you for the comments that you left on my blog. What a small world. The fact that your Mother and Uncle were in Bridport during the 1940's. It is the place on the coast that I love going to in order to switch off.
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