Goodbye Walnut Tree

If you have ever visited our house and spent any time in our backyard you know about our walnut tree.  Obviously it is huge, but this is not the main reason people know about it.  Most people notice our old and very broken lawn furniture and we then tell them that the tree drops walnuts with such intensity that it has broken every single one of our lawn chairs and we are too cheap to replace them knowing it will just happen again.  The tree dropped junk all year, but the walnuts were intense. They were loud when they hit the house and powerful when they hit the ground.  We could not allow the children to play outside when they were falling for fear of an intense blow.  You might be laughing...well I am telling the truth.  Not only are the walnuts forceful, they are also plentiful.  I would say this tree was one of the most fruitful walnut trees to ever live. I think we filled about 6 huge outdoor trash cans this fall and half of the walnuts fell in the neighbors yard. 

Long story short, we were not fans of the tree.  The shade it provided was nothing compared to the headaches it caused.  We finally decided to take the tree down and had a man come for an estimate.  He said that because it was growing around primary power lines that the power company would take most of it down for free. Great news!  Now, if you zoom in on the photo you will see that this tree was surrounded by power lines, but also very close to our house and our neighbor's house and garage.  They told us they would cut the tree until it was under the power lines and we were in charge of the rest.  They also told us we were in charge of haul away for all the branches. 

The long awaited big day finally arrived and M and I were glued to the window watching them work.  It was fascinating.  We still have a forest of sticks in our yard.  You will all get to see our forest in a later post scheduled for the end of the month. 

The Before shot of the BIG tree!

M: When are they going to start cutting?

M: Daddy, can you believe they are cutting the tree down?

One man worked on the ground clearing the limbs and the other was in the boom.

Because of all the buildings and power lines and our retaining wall and swing sets etc the only way to get to the tree was parking a big boom truck in the neighbor's driveway. 

Brandon and I were fascinated by the lowering of the heavy large sections.  There were many ropes and bracing systems.  Seems like an intense job to me.