(Whistling the Lumberjack Song from Monty Python)
On Friday, we lost yet another member of our tight knit family here in Holiday Hills. One of the mighty oak on the back of our property had lost its valiant fight for life because of the drought and hard winter. He just didn’t put out any leaves this spring.
I called our tree service guy, Mark, to come out and give me an estimate. We figured the estimate would be high because of the trees position in the yard. There were utility wires running under a major branch. Then there was the fact that our septic field was right next to the tree. There was only one path to get into the tree to take it down.
The work was scheduled to be done the day before we left for vacation. However, the rains at that time prevented Mark from getting his crew into the area to take the oak down. So it had to wait for the ground to dry out and get solid. That day was August 1. The tree was coming down.
About 8:30, the first truck arrived. I think there ended up being a total of 6 trucks around the house at one time. Plywood was put down on the yard where the bucket truck would need to drive to get close to the oak. That’s a lot of plywood. This was a platform for the bobcat as well to pick up the huge pieces of trunk.
We watched at the kitchen window as the first branches started to come down. Slowly but surely, the top of the tree disappeared. The utility wires survived the first stages. After the tree had been topped out, it was time to plan for the main trunk to hit the ground.
By this time, Brad and Angie, our neighbors at the back, were in their yard watching. Brad had requested some of the tree for bonfire purposes. He made sure to get what he wanted from the crew. Rich and I went over to watch the felling since it had a great vantage point.
Members of the crew marked out the patch where they figured the tree would fall and each mark was the estimated top of the tree location. I didn’t hear if there was a prize for the best guess. Marco, the crew chief, threw his mark out first. After everyone’s guess, Marco began the chainsaw and expertly took the tree down.
After the oak landed with a pretty good thud, the check for marks was made. The last guy to make his guess won. That’s not how it looked in the video though. I think they were trying to disqualify his mark, even though witnesses to the guesses would agree that he won fair and square.
The rest of the trunk was chopped up and toted away. It took two trailers to take the mighty oak out of the yard. That’s even with the parts that they had left with Brad for safe burning.
So the oak at the back of the property is no more. It was sad to see it come down, but better this way than a major wind storm and destroying someone’s property. Now we’ll need to look for a suitable replacement to give us shade in the future.
After paying Mark for services rendered, we headed off to our first adventure of the weekend.
Video to see how the oak tree fell:
