I dislike when we have to cut down trees on our property, but these two are fairly close to the northside of our house – next to the garage – and we were concerned about the possibility of them or large branches coming down on our house during the two severe storms we had during July Fourth weekend.

We called Amos, owner of All Season Tree and Bucket Service, to have him confirm that we had reason to be concerned. We were especially uneasy about the maple tree because it looked like it was deteriorating. Amos agreed that it is wise to take them down. Both were between 90 and 95 feet tall and very old. We know they have been here since 1967 when we built the house – and were very tall at that time.

The crane truck was the first to arrive at 8 o’clock on Wednesday morning. Then there were several other vehicles that must have made the neighbors wonder what was going on as they drove by.

They began work almost immediately because the crane truck is rented by the hour. This is the top branch of the maple tree. We needed the crane because the trees were close to the house, but most importantly because of our electric and phone lines.

The crane operator lowered it carefully…

…and stood it on end – making it look like we had a tree in the middle of our driveway.

Later when I told Amos that it was easy to see it was not his workers “first roadeo.” He said, “It isn’t, but the crane operator makes us look good.”

The large branch was laid over gently to process and grind the branches and save the large, straight logs.

Then the crane was lifted to go back for the next branch and repeat the process.

The man in the tree made sure each branch was attached securely to the crane strappings before cutting it from the trunk below.

If you look closely you can see the bottom of this branch just above the peak of the house.

Another branch is on the ground.

Putting the branches and leaves into the machine that quickly ate them.

This process was repeated many times.

The maple tree is gone.

Next, they removed the top of the Shag Bark Hickory.

This time they used equipment to guide the trunk to the proper place in our yard. Notice the large logs to the right.

Coming down for the last cut of the hickory tree.

I am sure we will feel more comfortable during the next storm. However, we have many more tall trees, but don’t expect they can do as much damage as these two could have.

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Tomorrow, I will show you what our yard looked like after All Season Tree and Bucket service ground up twenty-one tree stumps. He was here for two days.

Cerwin said some of the stumps have been here since my dad sold most of the locust trees in this woods – about 75 years ago, others from when we built the house 59 years ago, quite a few from times we had trees taken down due to lightening and storm damage or the time when many Ash trees had to be eliminated due to the bug that went through our area and killed them.

From the Internet: The Ash borer disease refers to damage caused by the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle from Asia that has killed tens of millions of ash trees across North America since its detection in 2002.