Just Like Paul Bunyan!

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I had some outdoor projects to tackle this summer. The first one was cutting down a tree in our back yard. The victim is a giant willow tree. The tree was about 60% dead and just like the rest of the yard, had been neglected for years. I'm sure at one time this tree could have been very pretty, but our was not able to be brought back.

You can see in the picture above that there was quite a bit of dead wood in the interior of the tree. Last year we had a couple of tree service companies drive by the house and give us estimates to cut down and remove the tree. They came in at $850, $1200, and $1800! I wasn't about to pay that much to chop a tree down, but as much as I love using a chainsaw, cutting down trees, and chopping wood, I knew I needed some professional help on this tree so I didn't fall it on my house, fence, of my neighbor's shed! I started asking around at the fire station and it turns out one of the guys used to work his summers in college doing tree work! He had all his own gear and would help me cut it down for $25 an hour, cash! Not a bad deal!

We started at 0800 on a Sunday morning and I also recruited a couple of my friends to help. My two friends and I would haul and cut all the wood once Ed, the tree guy from the fire department dropped them.

After about 2 hours of work we were dropping the last main branch of the tree!

While we were cutting down the tree, we were stacking all the wood in three piles, one for brush, one for branches, and one for logs. We figured this would make the most sense for when we had to get rid of everything. I borrowed a tandem axle hydraulic dump trailer from a guy at work who lives down the street from me. We were originally going to use it and bring all the wood to a guy Ed knows who would chip it and burn it for heat next winter, but the guy I borrowed the trailer from wanted the branches and logs to burn in his house! This saved us two drips to the northern metro! We spent the next 6 hours hauling and dumping the wood scrap and at the end of the day we had a stump were a willow tree once stood!

So, for basically $200 and a hard days work, the willow tree was cut down, removed, and the yard cleaned up! Shannon and I are very happy with how that yard looks without it and I am very excited not to have to pick up all the branches it would drop every time the wind got about 5 mph! We are planning on having the stump (along with three others in the yard) ground down in the next couple weeks and plan on planting two or three silver maples to replace the willow! One outdoor summer project done....about five or so to go!