Goodbye to our big triple-poplar tree

June 24, 2015

So on this fateful morning a street-load of equipment from Ace Tree Surgery filled Moody Lane while Brenda talks to Gus about access to his driveway.

We had decided that we must say goodbye to our magnificent triple-trunk poplar tree that stood at the back corner of the house. One of the guys from the tree service estimated its height between 95 and 105 ft. Our neighbor was nervous about it towering over his house, and we joked that with a well-placed lightning strike one trunk could take out his house, another could take out our house, and the third could take out our back sheds.

He continued sawing off the side limbs until he reached the extent of the high lift.

They moved the big lift truck into Gus's driveway and their high altitude man started sawing off the limbs on the way up the three big trunks.

Once he had cut off all the limbs to the top of his lift, it was a matter of roping the other limbs so they could be controlled on the way down when he cut them.

This shot over the house gives some perspective about how tall this tree was.

Now they had only the tallest treetop to remove. He looped the rope above and below the point where he was going to saw the tree. I don't know how he got that rope higher on the treetop.

A pretty gutsy process! After looping the rope on the tree above and below the cut point, he sawed through the tree, allowing it to fall and be caught by the rope loop he had put on below the cut point. He had to move himself back quickly on the left, because the reaction caused the top of the tree trunk to swing back and forth three or four feet!

Visiting Mark on movie set
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