tree removal

Yesterday we drove some heavy equipment to Alicia's place to remove some trees that have been on our list of things to do for YEARS!!!  My parents talked about removing these trees 30 years ago and now it has happened!  And, there are more on the list, but the really big ones are beyond our skill set.  For now, the pile that we made north of her house will be all that we accomplish this spring.

First we pulled a failing flowering crab and an almost dead sweet cherry tree.  I tried to pull those last year with Kenny, the loader tractor and could not get them out.  This spring we brought Colt to do the job!

Reynald, Scott the scarecrow and Alicia.

Scott will need to have a wardrobe update for the coming garden season.

Next on the removal list were the arborvitae shrubs.  

One gone, seven more to go!

I pulled the shrubs out with Colt, and drug them out to the field and then Reynald used Kenny to put them on to a quickly growing, eventual burn pile.

Alicia hooked the chain to the arborvitae and then to the tractor.

Here's what it looks like with all those shaggy shrubs removed.  

Next Reynald and Kenny cleaned up the burn pile from last year!  Alicia was able to burn most of the pile last week, but there were some stumps and random branches left.  Reynald hauled those to the new burn pile.  Alicia's garden space just increased!  The squash vines will be growing across the road this summer!!!

Alicia has ordered a few fruit trees and plans to plant those in the area where we removed the juniper trees north of the equipment shed. 

There were five juniper trees planted on the north side of the equipment shed.  They needed to go away.....

Again, we hooked a chain to the tree, Colt pulled and drug the tree to the ever increasing in size, burn pile!

Here I am waiting for Reynald and Kenny to push the trees in to a somewhat tidy pile. 

Kenny worked hard today.

This looks so much better.  Still some work to do to get the site ready for the fruit trees, but the big job is finished.  We haven't seen this side of the shed for 40 years!