Up a gum tree to down a gum tree

Click on picture to enlarge.

from w
Two eucalypts, about fifty years old, took three and a half hours to come down. Three men, a cherry-picker, a chain-saw, ropes, a machine with gigantic teeth, a mulcher. Here's some of the process. I missed the finale as I had to leave to do some computer work up at the church. The trees came down at the request of a neighbour who plans to build four units. The men did a careful clean job, measuring occasionally so that nothing was damaged, removed the Hills Hoist line, etc. I was rather scared though of the mulcher which just ate up most of the tree branches and they only kept a few logs to sell for firewood perhaps.

It's sad, but okay I guess, the branches may one day fall, and one tree was dying anyway.

(Later - Saturday) This morning at 9 a.m. I heard a terrific row in the back garden and the men had come back with a different machine, to dig up the tree stumps and turn them into dust. All I have left of the trees is the dust and a handful of leaves left behind after a branch came crashing down.

A grey day for two eucalypts

from w
Because our neighbour is pulling down his wooden cottage in order to build four units, he has requested that our two tall gum trees be cut down. The reason is that branches may fall - one tree is dying though the other is fully alive, and also the roots apparently probably extend halfway across under his back yard. I like my tall trees - they hover over the little two-room bungalow but I can see his point of view. He is paying for the cost and also for a new fence - 220 feet of it. Friday morning is D day for the trees, 7.30 a.m. so I had better hurry up and do some drawings of the two trees before then! The plan is for the branches and trunk to be cut and fall on his back yard, not on my little bungalow, Hills hoist, or Junior's lettuce garden!
(posted later - Thursday. Added colour this time. I was out in the garden, hanging out the clothes - and heard so much bird chatter in the two trees. Sobosobo. It will be quieter tomorrow afternoon!)