Today was a very emotional day for me. Yes I know we’re talking about tree removal, but this was literally my favorite tree on our property. I called her Big Mama Oak and she started growing before the American Revolutionary War. We did our best with her the last decade of her life when we were her stewards, but her time had come.

The crew from Treemendous arrived early and soon trucks and equipment lined both sides of the street.

As they were sitting up I actually had to go back inside for a little bit because I found myself literally tearing up that we were really going to do it. That we were really going to take her down. truthfully I did not expect so visceral reaction from myself. I have taken a lot of photos, it will take me a few days to go through them, but these are just some of the ones that I have handy.

Little by little giant limbs started to come down. And the perspective is so interesting because you look at something way up in the sky and it doesn’t look nearly the size that it is is it swinging over your house as it is being brought down by a crane.

She was a huge tree. So beautiful. But as they took her down piece by giant piece, it was like a tree autopsy and you could see where she was failing from the inside out.

This was quite the process on another hot day with less sun, but still pretty wicked weather. The oak was one of two trees which had to come down. The second tree was an ash. The ash is not a tree species I am overly fond of, so it was a purely pragmatic thing: it was dangerous and rotting at the bottom.

Today was like watching a crazy ballet of giant and incredibly heavy trees as they came down piece by piece. And no matter how big the piece of tree, it all came down gently. And if you have used tree companies or arborists who just drop and thump, you would appreciate the difference of a company that has more respect for their customers and their property like Treemendous Tree Care.

Years ago, at another house we used a now defunct tree company. They also dropped a big dying tree for us at that time and they literally dropped every piece so it made a giant thump and literally shook our old house. I remember when I went outside to speak to that crew foreman years ago he was most unpleasant that I was incredibly uncomfortable with the way they were taking that tree down.

Today I felt sad my favorite tree was coming down, and less so about the other tree. I admired the artistry after a fashion of each tree coming down piece by piece. I also appreciated the cross sections of wood and the grain. The wood itself was beautiful.

Now all that is left is a tallish stump. Hopefully we will carve it. That is the plan. I will go through the photos that I took today and share of you all are interested.

In the meantime, pray for rain because we really didn’t get any…again.