Hazard Tree

Day 349: It wasn't the nicest way I could have responded to the pleasant young man who came over to introduce himself after purchasing the wooded lot next door to me, but as we talked, I decided to point out a hazard tree which has been worrying me for some time. It was tall enough that had it gone down, it could have taken out my carport or even my bedroom. A surveyor might have said otherwise, but my neighbour and I both agreed that it was on his side of the property line. Then he gave me some assurance by adding, "My brother is a professional tree-trimmer. We'll take care of it when he comes out here." That was a couple of weeks ago, and I wasn't expecting immediate action, so when they knocked on my door over the weekend and said they'd start on it on Tuesday, I was surprised. The brother spent Tuesday limbing, even working by headlamp after dark, and was back on Wednesday to make the first serious cut at the point where you see him circled in the photo on the right. He was limited in what he could do by the size of the chainsaw he had available (he'd travelled across the country and had not brought his own saws), so the goal was to take off enough of the top so that if the tree did go over in a storm, it wouldn't hit my house. He wound up taking off two sections. The top measured about 18-20', and the larger second cut about 12', which brought the height of the tree to roughly 100', and within safe distance from any of my structures. He'll be back at some later date to finish taking the tree down.