Tree Removal

Monday and Tuesday brought a lot of fun action to our house as we had a GIANT, seriously, this thing was HUGE, dead tree removed from our front yard.

The dead tree was so courteously left as a gift from this little bit of evil incarnate:

{Via}

The Emerald Ash Borer.

Unfortunately for our neighborhood Ash Borers weren't an issue back in the 60s when our housing development was built so there are tons of mature Ash trees sprinkled throughout the neighborhood, which are all dead now thanks to these little bugs.  It's quite sad.  Apparently these little suckers can kill big trees like ours within 2 years.  It's quite a problem in our area (and several other states around us as the problem just continues to spread).

I can personally attest to the fact that 2 years ago our tree was totally fine.  Last year you could see that there was a problem.  Probably 1/3 of the tree didn't get leaves last Spring and it was confirmed towards the end of Summer that the tree was indeed infected.  This year, nothing.  Nada.  No leaves.  The tree was completely dead.  That's fast!  Not only that, but to make it even more lovely all the bark started falling off. 

Even sadder is the amount of money it costs to have a dead GIANT tree removed from your yard.  Apparently the whole GIANT and dead thing complicates the situation.  Yeah, not cheap.  After TONS of estimates we finally ended up laying out $1500 to trade the giant dead eye-sore tree for a giant eye-sore hole smack dab in the middle of our front yard.  Fabulous.  Some local municipalities are offering group contracts as motivation for individuals to get infected trees removed from their property (Ash trees on public property are being removed by the local governments), but of course our particular area isn't offering any sort of negotiated rate.  At least not yet, I'm sure now that we've put it off as long as possible and paid full price for a removal they'll probably start a group savings project in the Spring or something.  And then I'll get ragey. 

Just a sad, sad situation all around.  I'm sad that the tree died.  I'm sad we had to cut it down.  I'm sad we had to pay $1500 just to have a dead tree removed.  I'm sad that now instead of a tree in our front yard we have a giant hole that cost us $1500. 

Honestly though, once I saw just how much work went in to taking this thing out, I felt like we got an awesome deal.  The first day there were 4 guys here for 4 1/2 hours working non-stop (seriously, they worked HARD!).  Not only that, but they had to use a cherry picker to cut the branches off so there's that :/  The next day 2 guys came back for another 5 hours working non-stop to remove the big pieces that weren't shreddable the day before as well as to grind the stump and do some major cleanup of the front yard.  We're definitely happy with the service we got.

End of day yesterday.  This is wood just from the largest branches of the tree.

And here's the trunk.  Those rounds are HUGE.  As an especially nice treat around dusk we discovered that one of those rounds from the trunk had rolled into the street.  Mark was just barely able to get it back up in the yard near the curb because it was so heavy.  This whole process has just been so much fun.

And... end of day 2.  We get to keep all that mulch.  Isn't that exciting?!  :/

Really, there's no way around the giant hole we now have when you have to take out a tree of that size.  I guess we'll have to figure out what to do about that in the Spring.  I vote just leveling off the mulch and spray painting in green to blend in with the grass.  Maybe people won't notice!

Of course all the hub bub was super exciting for Jack.  He was all about seeing the trucks and watching the guys do their work from the front window.  Super surprisingly he actually napped through the chaos the first day (I was shocked!).  The second day, not so much, but they arrived right as I was laying him down so he didn't get any time to see what was going on or adjust to the noise beforehand like he did the day before.

And... no more giant, dead tree.  I guess it's an improvement, but now our yard looks pretty desolate.

Oh well, SO sooo glad this is all behind us now!  And added bonus, now we won't have to worry about dead, ice-coated tree limbs falling through our windows or roof this winter. :/