The man from Ashplunkt, the company that clears trees from power lines for the city, was supposed to come two weeks ago to "top" our trees so we could remove them safely. He never showed up, so we cut down the first two trees by ourselves. I wrote about that in our last blog.
On Tuesday, he was in our yard, climbing into the middle of one of the three remaining trees, hacking down the center of it to remove the tallest branches from the wires. Rick went outside and told him he did not have to do so, but he said that he promised us he would cut them, so cut them he did. Unfortunately, that is all he did. He cut the main trunk near the top, dropping the cut branches into our yard, or leaving them in the neighbor's yard, or leaving them still caught and tangled into the middle of the trees. Then off he went.
Terrific. We went outside and were greeted by three butchered trees. The lower and outside branches were still intact, and the upper part of each tree had a "V" shaped opening where he had removed the branches that touched the wire. Actually, he removed SOME of the branches, but not really all of them.
I am ill with a sinus infection. Rick was coming down with the same said infection. We both were tired and felt like crap. But we could not let the trees stand as they were. So we brought out the gloves and SawsAll, and we started to haul branches to the curb.
When the workers from the city came to chop up the first load of branches, the driver, Matt, told us to pile the branches with the trunks all together, and to leave the branches as long as we could. OK. No problem. We hauled the downed branches, lining the curb from our property line to over halfway to the opposite property line. The piles all towered above my head.
Then Rick cut down the remaining three trees. By the time we were finished, we were both too exhausted (and I was too sick), to care about the stumps. That had to wait for another day. We finished just in time for Rick to call Matt back. Matt said that he would swing by our house the next day to pick up the branches.
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| Where giant trees once stood, we only have dirt and wood chips left. The yard feels very open and exposed. |
The following day we traveled to Appleton to order shades for the patio, and by the time we returned, our trees were gone. Thank you, Matt!
Rick called a stump removal firm, and the owner came on Thursday to grind down the stumps. He spent 35 seconds each on the first four stumps, one minute and three seconds on the largest stump, and about 10 seconds each on the dogwood and lilac stumps. We would have taken hours to dig out those stumps, and he had them ground down in less than five minutes. We gladly paid him his reasonable fee.
Of course, we now face all of the piles of dirt/ stump bits/ and mulch left over. We also need to remove the 25-year-old landscape fabric that is firmly embedded with pine tree roots. Rick and I worked all morning filling the back of the truck with what we could dig out. When we unloaded it at the yard debris site, it certainly did not look like much, but we are glad it is gone.
We are about half-way finished in taking out the debris from this old garden, but that was as far as we could venture on that project today.
After lunch, I mowed and trimmed our lawn. At least the neighbor can have her party overlooking a fairly civilized-looking neighboring landscape.
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| The cement to the right in the picture was black with mold. You can clearly see where Rick stopped washing for the day. |
Rick took our power washer and started to wash the mold off our front walk and our driveway. He still has a bit to go, but the energy only goes so far. He also washed the concrete floor in our screened in patio. That needed mold removal also!
We both are exhausted tonight. We will take the rest of the weekend off, and we'll get back to the gardens next week Tuesday when the yard debris site opens once again. Until then, we plan to relax and to enjoy the next couple of days.
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