Winter "Pruning"

Time to catch up on a few items, the first being the trees...

Before and the first weather delay

After we purchased our house last year, we made our first, official visit as new homeowners during Thanksgiving week (2019).  One of the things I noticed was the large, mature White Poplar in the back corner of the yard.  It was very large and had 5 main leaders, each, of which, was the size of medium sized tree. One of the concerning things was one of the leaders was dead and hanging almost entirely in our neighbor's back yard.  Also, since Poplars are a soft wood, large limbs would break off during windy days and my main concern being all the power lines and telephone/cable lines within 20 feet of it.  The tree had to go, but we knew we would wait until the following Fall to have it removed.

Crane spanning over our garage to the back of the lot

The first quote we received was astronomical ($10k), which, in my mind, was the company's polite way of saying, "we don't want the job".  But, I persisted and found a company to do the difficult work.  In all, we had three trees removed: the big White Poplar in the back corner of the yard and a smaller, albeit, large one closer to the house. The second tree was between two Blue Spruce trees and it definitely was impacting their health: falling limbs, competing for moisture, and shading the Spruce.  The last tree was in the front yard along the street--a Siberian Elm.

Before and during the process

After a few delays, due to snow, the initial work was done the week of Thanksgiving. We were excited for the work to begin, since the first available scheduling for the initial date was over two months prior. It took two full days to remove the trees with the large tree being the main challenge.  The electrical line to our house was disconnected and dropped to the ground by the City to prevent damage to the overall utility service on our block. This was necessary in case a cut tree limb accidentally fell on the line. The fine to the tree company is $10k per instance!

Down but not out!

Nevertheless, these guys were very professional and took their jobs seriously and everything happened without any issues.  I may have been more stressed about the process than they were, but they did a fantastic job!  Since, I work at home, I had to force myself to stay inside and ignore what was going on in the back yard. A week later, after another weather delay (snow), they came back to grind down the stumps.

4+ feet in diameter!!!