Diary catch up #1 - Back to August and the Big Tree Felling Day

It was the Friday of the August Bank Holiday Weekend, and all began quietly at Windy Acre....

But not for long!

First of all the Engineer was witnessed erecting this Mary Poppins-like contraption onto one of the posts around the Veg Patch...

A time lapse camera (with Heath Robinson sunshade) in order to capture for posterity the day's events. (Although we got to enjoy these, I have no idea how to go about uploading the film onto here, so stills from my camera phone will have to serve).

Old 80ft Cupressus macrocarpa (Monterey Cypress) in centre, with baby Ash tree nearest to house - too near!

Our lovely tree surgeons 'Special Branch' (yes, really) arrived with their man toys and proceeded to calmly slice and dice the Ash tree a limb at a time, until it looked like this:

...and then took it out to the ground.  I felt a bit sad about this, as the ash was a lovely tree, waving at me from the ensuite bathroom window and giving us a nice sense of privacy from the school buildings next door. But it was only 4 metres or so from the foundations of the north wall, (not at all popular with the insurance company!) and as only a baby still it could only have grown bigger and bigger.  My plan when re-doing this area of planting will be to make sure I include a back layer of native types of multi-stemmed tree/shrubs which can be periodically coppiced and which do not grow over 15 feet or so ultimately, giving us the nice naturalistic look coupled with privacy and dappled light, without the threat of having to do such major surgery again.

But this was just the warm up! And it only took them 45 mins...

Next came the turn of the huge leaning Monterey Cypress which used to creak alarmingly in the wind.  As the trunk was bare for over  half it's length, all the branches were at the very top and it looked like a top sail that could threaten to go over onto the school buildings (if not our roof) in a bad storm.  And it wasn't pretty - it loomed over the house and garden too tall and thin.  We will have to keep an eye on the smaller Monterey Cypress alongside to ensure that one doesn't eventually do the same thing.

This was an impressive felling.  One minute it was there:

A quick climb, whip off a few likely troublesome branches, secure some guide ropes, stand well back while the chosen one carefully chainsawed a wedge out of the trunk at the bottom...We all had a guess at how long it would be and where exactly it would fall and had to stick our marker in the grass.

And the next it was down and we had this huge expanse of blue sky instead!

The stump was enormous, and actually took longer to grind out than felling and chopping both trees together.

In the foreground is the pile of chopped ash:

And here is the pile of the Monterey Cypress, just cut into rounds for Andy to chop and stack himself. Interestingly, here I am writing this catch up entry on the 11 March 2015 and that pile is pretty much still in the same location! Piled up and tarped as best as we could, but basically waiting for it's permanent home to be constructed - soon hopefully! as a sort of Boy's Wood Heaven area, around the old Horse Chestnut stump where the Engineer will have his log chopping station and we will also have a bonfire/BBQ pit.

It was a big job, which we are still clearing up after - and which ultimately had a slightly negative effect on my precious stone potting shed, as I will reveal in a later entry - but it needed to be done.  I don't like taking down trees completely.  But I am sure when I have replanted the area it will feel and look much better.  And there is nothing A likes more than a nice pile of wood to play with.