It's gone.

[errantember]

The iffy-looking 30 foot, 20-inch-thick linden tree that used to tower over most of my front yard is now lying in pieces on the ground instead. With no previous tree removal experience, and minimal help from Echo, I was able to cut down the entire thing by myself in one day. I'm really surprised I was able to do it that fast. Like many real-work-involving projects, it looked worse than it was. It was also fun to do a stupid, dangerous male thing without help, which I haven't done in a while.


I bought a 8 ft. Desirable Pecan to replace it using a gift certificate my Dad gave me for Christmas, as well as an orange, fig, and loquat trees that would like to be in the ground instead of in containers. And while they're growing, I have a lot more space for raised veggies beds in the front yard.

I used a small hand saw for all the cuts above the height I could reach from the ladder, about 10 feet. Not being an experienced chainsaw user, it was too easy to picture bloody, switching limbs hitting the ground before my pain-wracked body followed. The hand saw was a lot more work, but it was the right tool. About 7 of the biggest branches were above important, breakable things, like Echo and my house, so I had to tie them to the main trunk before cutting so they could be lowered in a more controlled manner. By the time I got done with the hand-saw, all I had left was the main trunk and the first joint on one larger fork. The chainsaw work was imprecise but effective. There's a lot *more* work to be had in cleanup, as pretty much my entire front lawn is now a minefield of twiggy limbage that would give even a Marine would have trouble navigating. I cut off the branches that were blocking the sidewalk to I wasn't violating the easement, but the heavy clean-up will have to happen another day.

I am fucking exhausted.

Comments

[errantember.livejournal.com]

Thanks, me too! Chainsaws are fun, but they're fucking dangerous.