Timber!

This morning, I watched a huge dead tree being taken down right outside my office window at home by these guys. The cold and light snow cover didn't faze them. One of the guys climbed up the tree with a safety rope and his chainsaw, and all morning, he cut one huge limb after another and lowered them down by ropes. It was awesome and frightening to me, and as the morning wore on, more awesome and less frightening. He reminded me of a cowboy, except instead of roping cattle, he was roping tree. Just before noon, the bulk of the big tree came down. That was one helluva earth-shaking boom as it hit the forest floor.

This tree service is run by well-trained arborists whose goal is to preserve trees, not cut them down, and luckily this was the only tree on our 3 acre wooded property that had to come down. They will be back tomorrow to continue pruning a dozen more trees around the driveway and house, which should improve the health of the trees and prevent damage to my roof and my garage-less cars.

And for the record, at no time did I hear anyone yell “Timber!”

The climb begins:



All but the main trunk is gone:



The deed is done. The tree measured 2-1/2 ft. in diameter: