Monday, February 8, 2016
We were hoping for another sunny day, but no luck. Today the tree service people were coming to cut down our double-trunk ash tree (Fraxinus spp), which has been infested with emerald ash borers (Agrilus planipennis). The tree was dying, and we couldn't afford to have it fall on our house, or our neighbors' houses! It is basically two trees.
Five men arrived in four trucks: a crane truck, a cherry picker, a small utility truck pulling a chipper/shredder, and another utility truck pulling a stump grinder.
To carefully back the crane truck down our narrow driveway to the back yard, they put down pieces of plywood overlapping the edges of the driveway to create the widest driveway they could.
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Crane truck in our backyard; note the extended tree pruner
holding back the power lines! And the two trees creating a 'V' to the right |
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| The arborist, or is he a lumberjack?, with all his gear |
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| The crane cable lifted the "tree surgeon" |
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| and deposited him on the ash tree |
If those are foot markings on the crane, then I estimate it can reach up to 75 feet.
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After some initial cuts, he started by
cutting off the top third of the tree |
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It was like having a full-grown tree outside
a second story window! |
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| The chipper/shredder truck |
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| The chipping/shredding took place in the driveway: noisy! |
You can see that it is starting to snow!
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This guy had to wait for the top part of the tree
to be cut up enough to free the crane cable |
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| He attached the crane cable to the trunk |
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| He pulled up a larger chainsaw |
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| and cut the remaining trunk of the tree in half |
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| The crane lifted the tree trunk |
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| making sure it got over one set of wires |
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| and lowered it into the truck |
They were shredding "branches" up to 6-8 inches, but had to haul away the thicker trunks.
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| Someone else got to cut the base of the trunk |
Then they still had to cut down the other tree! Eventually the crane truck backed down the driveway, and the stump grinder truck backed in and got the thing right up to the stump!
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| Stump grinder truck |
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| Grinding the stump |
Next: a new fence!
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