The month of June here in northern New Hampshire has seen its fair share of rain, a little more than three inches for the month compared with four and half inches last month. Fortunately it’s been spread out rather than coming in mass quantities all at once. There’s only been occasional minor localized flooding, nothing disasterous.
This month’s project has been tree removal. For years the white pines around my home have been growing taller and taller. Given that winds seem to being blowing more strongly than they used to, I figured it was time to take down some of them. I started with three pines all well over fifty feet tall as well as a large oak tree located beside my house. Two of the pines were just over the edge of the bank and the remaining pine and oak were at the end of an old defunct garden.
The space between my home and the steep narrow bank next to my property was kind of a tight squeeze but with a bit of jockeying the tree service guys worked in their bucket truck and commenced the felling. They started with trimming branches off each tree, feeding them into a woodchipper which noisily gnawed through them, spitting out the chips into a truck also driven up on the lawn.
To make room for felling the trunks, undergrowth had to be cleared out to one side, so the cutters had a place to drop the trees.
Then came the main event, the felling of the trees.
First the tops.
Then the bottom halves.
Then the bottom half of the last pine.
This last one fell so hard, it snapped in half.
Then all that remained was to haul off the trunks, probably to be cut into boards or firewood.
All in all, a job well done by the tree service. Admittedly it was a bit expensive to remove four trees, but it was worth it for the peace of mind. Now, of course, there are two huge pines on the other side of the house that need removing but that’s for a later date. In the meantime, I will be mulling over what kind of landscaping needs to be done in order to spruce things up.
Peace to you all and have a happy July.