TIMBER!

Several years ago we had a bad storm that knocked down a pretty large branch from our tree on the edge of our property in the backyard and we were fortunate to have had it land on our property and not cause any damage. Since then, we've talked about getting the tree taken down because it's basically dead and then talked about getting some work done to some other trees as well. Well, after all that talk, we finally got it done. I priced around, got three estimates (my mom always says it's good to get three) and had the work scheduled and completed earlier this week.

The girls were fascinated for the first couple hours at the machines in the backyard, the noise and ALL the work that went on. There was a ton of movement and it really was interesting to watch them work. Two hours were their max though and after that they went back to their normal playing.

We took down two smaller trees directly behind our house along with a bunch of stray branches from neighboring trees that were dying and growing into our huge Chestnut tree. The Chestnut was completely overgrown with branches coming out everywhere and literally poking you in the head as you walked in the backyard. I think they did such a great job cleaning up some low-lying and dead branches while still keeping the overall look to the tree.

Watching the tall Pine from the backyard come down was crazy. One of the workers CLIMBED all the way to the top to tie a knot, climb back down and thus began the sawing and timber part. They didn't yell "Timber!" though. I was a little disappointed. AND we were videotaping it and just 5 seconds before the tree actually fell, our battery ran out. Perfect timing! Oh well, you can see that it came down just fine.

Lots of cleaning up after everything came down and lucky for the workers, it was the coolest day we were going to have this week. Still, it's an incredibly tough job and I'm so glad it's done and done the way we wanted.

I haven't taken any "after" shots just yet because there is now A LOT of yard work to be done for it to be entirely presentable. A lot of cleanup to be done to the massive ivy AND poison ivy going on in the backyard. A small fence needs to come down, a new fence needs to go up. Weeding, tilling, mulching all needs to take place too. It's such a great space with still a lot of shade back there we need to take care of it.