The Great Maple Tree Takedown

Thar she is in all her glory. You can see the split down the middle that the lightning caused. What's not apparent from this view is that that split isn't even a quarter of the way up the trunk of the tree. Hence the instability and danger.

Here's one of the tree dudes making his way up for a first inspection. It's a good thing we have this side yard for them to run the trucks on, or else they'd have had to climb neighboring trees and drop the branches from there, leading to both increased danger for the crew and increased cost for us. Liam was quite impressed with the trucks these guys brought.

There he is sawing down the first of the branches...

...and now the right-hand side of the tree is down.

Liam and Casey take a break from spectating. They were both out there the whole morning watching this operation.

Taking the branches off the left side of the tree...

And that's the main truck that's left. That's about twenty feet of trunk you're looking at. This was one huge tree. Fortunately there are crabapples and maples on either side of this picture that should grow in and replace the canopy in a couple of years.

The remaining stump has been a great toy. We counted the rings - the tree was 29 years old. It's a shame to see it go, but better that than having it fall on the house.