Taking down trees

When we first moved in to our house nearly 15 years ago, we had over 200 trees on our 1.98-acre property. In case you weren't aware, that's a lot of trees. We've had to cut down several over the years (some were sick, some were in the way, some were dead), but the ones we cut down on Friday, April 17 were by far the trickiest trees we've removed.

We needed to get the trees out of the way since we are scheduled to break ground on our home addition/remodel later in May, and they stood in the way of our new great room. Because they were so tall and so close to the house, we rented a boom and called in the reinforcements (Dennis, Neal and Tyson) to help Seth with the cutting.

After our three trees were down, we moved the boom to Grandma and Grandpa Scott's house to take down a few of their dead poplars. And the next day, Seth returned the boom and we put the girls to work loading limbs and hauling logs.

 The boom set up in the back yard with Seth in the bucket.

Tyson tying off the top part of the tree so after Seth cut it, it would swing down harmlessly from the remaining trunk instead of falling all the way to the ground (or possibly into the house). 

 Seth the manly man with the sawdust-a-flyin'.

Tyson and Seth were quite the team. 

 Winnie helping to haul logs the next day.

The pile of logs we stacked on the road and advertised as free. It was all gone within 24 hours. All the branches we piled onto the trailer in three loads and took to the Hatch Pit.