Timber!!!!!

Over the last couple of weekends Brent and Jim managed to take down the big Spruce tree out front. The first weekend was spent cutting down the branches and top of the trunk and hauling it away. This weekend they tackled the stump and roots. It was a big job, and the tree was quite thick! Brent counted 41 rings. I wanted to keep this tree, but really it took up most of our front yard and dropped needles everywhere. It made our yard quite unusable. Our plan is to put in a new leaf tree that won't grow to be as big. I've been researching and I think I've narrowed it down to either a Manchurian Ash, Ventura Maple or Schubert Chokecherry. I'm not a huge fan of birds (well, not a fan of them waking me up in the morning), so the berry trees are not my first choice, even though they are very pretty. Lots of pics for you to look at!! Before - it seems wierd to see the snow there.

Here you can see the original tree bed that was put in (in black) and the actual size of the tree bed needed is probably 3 times that.
Step 1 - remove the branches

And we were left with this. The tree had 2 trunks because a previous owner cut the top off when the tree was young.

Then each trunk was cut off and we had this stump left for a week.

The strange flyer lady in our neighborhood rang our doorbell and told me we should carve it into a totem pole. When I told her we wern't going to do that she said she might come steal the tree in the night. After seeing how much work it was to get the rest of it down, I would have liked to see her try!

Over the next week, Brent had to dig out all around the tree to expose the roots. Luckily, Spruce trees don't go very deep, but the roots spread out wide. Then the big climax of taking down the trunk. hahaha

Finally, all the roots had to be sawed in order to be lifted into the trailer. They were super heavy. Not that I know first hand, but the looked darn heavy. And of course, and Eli photo to finish with. Eli supervised as usual.