Big project Sunday.

Damn, I forgot I was going to do a "new van" entry. I guess it will have to wait, because we had a rather large project to take care of today...

Sweet Gum trees are a pain in the foot due to the prickly "balls" they leave in the yard. To make matters worse, the rather large one we had in the back yard had been struck by lightning years ago taking the top out of it. So, it was rotting from the top down, dropping rather large limbs.

You'll notice we are pretty far into this project when the pictures start. I didn't think about the camera, and Deb didn't want to see the scary part.

I had the help of son-in-law Tim. One very large limb was handing over the shed, so we tied it off over another limb. He had a harness on in the tree, cut the limb, then I lowered it. The rest were just dropped straight down. The tree was tall enough to reach the house, so I had to notch it about 20' up to section it down some. I cut the notch from the ladder, then had Tim stand on the shed with the pole saw to make the back cut. We also roped the tree to Tim's truck to provide some directional assistance. I fell right where I wanted it, which is good because neither of us is an arborist by any stretch of the imagination.

Now the yard is cleaned up, I've got quite a pile of brush for the city to pick up Friday, and the stump has a pile of charcoal smoldering on top of it. Debbie is really happy to have this project done, not because she wanted the tree gone, but because there was no damage to people or property.

Thanks to Tim, for the help, and the extra saw.