Goodbye Tree, Hello Humongous Stump

Of course our treetastrophe last week struck less than 48 hours before we were scheduled to go on vacation, which had us in even more of a frenzy since we knew we had to take care of it before we left.  You know, so our neighbor could see out her back windows and use her yard.  Unfortunately, the company we settled on couldn’t make it out until last Thursday, the day that we were scheduled to leave our house around 4:30 in the a.m. to catch a flight to Seattle.  They told us that no one needed to be here, but we felt like someone should be in case a) they didn’t show up or b) there was some kind of problem.  We basically just wanted the peace of mind factor so we enlisted a trusty assistant: my mom.  Who was nice enough to drive up from Rochester for the day to be our house sitter/ blog assistant since you know we needed pictures.  Here’s what went down (literally) in our absence.

My mom took her job very seriously.  She asked the workers if it was alright to take pictures, and when they said yes, she went to town.  We were in awe of them when she emailed them since we didn’t actually see it in person until late last night in the dark.  Since we didn’t see it in person, we aren’t quite sure of the chronology, but the pictures definitely give a feel for the sheer size of this project.  Way too big for us to tackle ourselves.  Since we don’t own any type of crane….yet.

What we do know is they showed up on time, with a full crew of workers ready to take her down.

And they brought a lot of equipment, which must have been quite the buzz in the neighborhood since it blocked our entire street.  Yep, all these vehicles to bring down one gigantic tree.

They started by clearing the large branches from our neighbor’s yard since that was the number one priority.

Then they figured out how to take down the rest of it that was still standing.  It’s kind of sad that we missed all the action since it looks really fascinating to see how they do it.  They even send up tree climbers to get the limbs ready to take off.

And then they haul away the remnants.

Which was a lot in our case.  As in many trucks full.

The trunk and limbs were so heavy they had to be hoisted on the truck with machinery.

When it was all said and done many hours later, here’s what our neighbor’s yard looked like.  The tree removal company did a really good job cleaning up her yard.

You can see a little damage from the trucks and the tree falling, but it is a big improvement from this.

Luckily, the damage seems to be minimal to her yard, but one of her trees is now missing the top section.  I still don’t quite understand why trees of all things don’t regenerate, but Dain informs me that they do not.  So this tree is permanently deformed.  I have my fingers crossed that our neighbor will enjoy this new found quirkiness, but we might have to take it down and replace it if that’s what she wants.

Here’s what we are left with over on our side.

A humongous stump and a mangled yard.  And a completely different yard at that.  Our backyard used to be almost completed shaded from this tree.  Not anymore.  Hello sunshine.  Lots of it.

One of us should have laid down on this beast to give you an idea of the size, but it measures 6 feet 5 inches at the widest point. That’s one big tree stump.

Like we mentioned in our original post about the treetastrophe, the cost to remove the stump is out of our price range.  As was the removal of the tree….but we HAD to do that.  We don’t have to remove the stump.  But what does one do with a 6 x 6 tree stump? Your guess is as good as ours.  Dain threw out putting a bistro set on top.  Interesting idea.  My grandparents have a stump that they have adorned with an angel and a bunch of other yard art creatures surrounding it looking up at the angel.  Seriously.  So that is another less likely possibility since we only have one piece of said yard art (our Twins gnome).  We are open to suggestions, but for now, we’re just glad that it’s taken care of.  We’re already thinking about removing two more trees in the back over the winter to avoid having a tree fall on our house and to make room for our retaining wall and fence that now looks like it will happen next year.