Diane wanted our trees trimmed and when we saw a crew of Kelley’s Tree Service, she decided it was “a sign.” We watched seven men with chain saws trim our evergreen tree, cut down our dead apple tree, and trim our giant oak tree. A guy in a tractor removed the cut limbs which went straight to their wood chipper.
No ladders for this crew! With the tall trees, they used a cherry picker unit that took them up 30+ feet. Rain was in the forecast, so these guys raced with rain to complete the trimming. Now, everything looks so much better! Are there any home improvements on your list?
A few years ago I had seven trees removed from the side yard! The properety there is only about eight or ten feet wide and the debris from those limbs were a real pain! One year a limb fell like a spear and penetrated the garage roof!
A few days ago a neighbor’s tree dropped a bunch of limbs into the same area and it’s a miracle they didn’t damage our siding, roof, or swamp cooler! We had them by yesterday and they promised to have the trees cut down! I told them I’d pay half ! Let’s see if they come through! They’re nice people and we like them, but I’ve been asking them to do something about these trees for years with no result!
In other news, I finally got my tax refund–for 2019! I may get 2020’s in December!
Bob, most of the houses around here have trees too close to their houses…or their neighbors houses. Whoever planted these trees decades ago planted them too close to houses instead of providing them space to grow safely. Maybe you can use all that tax refund money for tree trimming!
You are multi-talented. That’s a pretty nifty side gig, George. It is you and Diane in the orange, right?
Jerry, Diane declares the Kelley Tree Service truck was a “sign” that we should choose them to do our tree trimming. The guys worked hard and did a great job! Diane is delighted with the results. I felt like a little kid watching all the cool tractors and cherry picking equipment! Trucks were my favorite toys when I was a kid!
Tree trimming and removal services are de rigueur down here where even the most modest outdoor space has about ten trees (mostly live oak, pine, and/or magnolia). Over the years, we’ve had to have a number of trees removed on our property: some were diseased, a couple were so close to the house that squirrels were using them to get on our roof and into the attic. After a second tree fell on our roof in 2019 (the first one was in Hurricane Katrina in 2005), we had all the taller trees that surrounded our house removed. I’ll trade off the shade for the insurance premium increases, out of pocket deductibles, and general aggravation of getting a roof replaced. It wasn’t cheap to get big trees removed, but the peace of mind of knowing we weren’t likely to have another tree crashing through our roof during the next major storm was totally worth it.
Deb, in 1998, my father came over to our former house with his chainsaw. Diane wanted a tree that was too close to our house taken down and when my father heard about it, he told Diane not to contact a tree service. He would “save us some money” by cutting down the tree himself. I heard from my sisters that my father loved his chainsaw, but he was NOT a trained professional with it. Needless to day, I donned my protective clothing and safety glasses and gloves went out to help my father cut down the tree. My father cut and cut and cut. I didn’t see any pattern in the cuts and couldn’t figure out what he was doing exactly. Suddenly, there was a loud CRACK! and the tree toppled…and just missed my neighbor’s car in the driveway by literally an inch! My father was visibly shaken, so I took charge of the chainsaw and sent him into the house for Diane to deal with. I spent the next hour cutting the limbs and the trunk into smaller pieces and placed them near the street for Bulk Removal the next day by the North Tonawanda Department of Public Works. Then, I made the chainsaw disappear.
Whew! That was close. My idiot former brother in law decided to cut down a small tree with a chainsaw he borrowed from a friend. He saw no need to use two hands and nearly cut his hand off. Moron.
Jeff, my father was shocked when the tree toppled…and almost hit my neighbors car. I know there are techniques to insure a cut tree falls in a certain direction, but I’m pretty sure my father either didn’t know what he was doing…or he did it wrong. Either way, I made sure that was the last chainsaw massacre for my father. My mother was relieved after I told her the chainsaw was gone. She worried my father might hurt himself…or others.
The Tonawanda Chainsaw Massacre sounds like a great proposal for a horror flick! As they say in “the biz”: It should have legs (if not other body parts)’
Jerry, actually, our next door neighbor also had the Kelley Tree Service trim their trees, too. Tree trimming has a domino effect!
When I saw the heading, I thought you were putting up your Christmas tree and decided that was a good idea. I just ordered a new one and I might do that very early this year.
Patti, if Diane had her way, she’d keep the Christmas Tree up all year long! Somehow, a few new ornaments show up each year!
I need to trim back some branches hanging over my house, but I hate to get up on the roof without adult supervision.
Dan, my days of climbing ladders are over. Diane is happy with the Kelley Tree Service so we’ll have them come out on a yearly basis to do our trimming for us.
Cool. We see those guys with the cherry pickers around here trimming trees too, and occasionally taking one down (in pieces). No major home improvements here. Jackie had our living room rug cleaned – we had to wait a couple of weeks as they were backed up cleaning rugs and things for people who had been flooded by Hurricane Ida. I think she is planning on having the guys from the building do a little painting while we are in Florida. But that’s about it at the moment.
I have a dead ash tree waiting for removal. With all the emerald ash borer devastation around, there’s quite a backlog. I think my number comes up in January.
I have my electrician coming out the day after Thanksgiving to discuss generators. I made the appointment the beginning of September but, with all the summer power outages, those folks are swamped too.
I think a new roof and updated fireplace will be on the agenda in 2022.
Beth, Diane and I have been pleased with our GENERAC natural gas generator. I’d recommend it.
I’ve done lawn and garden work on the side for decades and as much as I love trees (there’s nothing uglier than a house surrounded by nothing but lawn) the two things I have to continually hammer into people’s heads are 1) Don’t plant trees near your home and 2) Trim your trees and bushes regularly.
Byron, my father–like a lot of people–was enamored with power tools. Some he knew how to use, some he didn’t. My father was fine trimming bushes. But that tree episode could have ended badly.
PSE&G ended up cutting a bunch of branches off our tree closest to the power line, which they replaced, after apparent decades of problems with that tree stretching well before Alice’s purchase of the house–no one mentioned this to Alice at any time, with a new line running at a 90-degree angle from the line in front of the house, rather than the previous 45-degree angle from the pole…in an emergency visit week before last and another last week, both times leaving a driveway full of branches for me to chop up and which were not picked up by local waste collection…the first set were hauled away by a contract service, and I still have the remnants of the second set. Shall see what I Did Wrong, Or not.
Todd, two years ago National Grid cut down a tree on our property whose limbs were messing with their wires. But, they left huge chunks of the tree in our backyard. I called National Grid and demanded that they take them away. “Nope,” was the answer they gave me. So Diane and I were delighted when Kelley’s Tree Service offered to take the multi-hundred pound chunks of wood away for us. Another eye-sore…gone!
The plastic back porch looks pretty good. Here’s hoping the price of it won’t be comparatively exorbitant when we seek out a similar replacement next spring or thereabouts. If the crick don’t rise.
We have a service come each year and walk the property to assess what needs pruning or removing, but we’re pretty good about keeping up and the bigger trees are either very open and/or far away from structure. If properly cared for, trees are beautiful and safe.
Rick, I love trees, but we’ve had one topple–Art Scott was visiting us when it happened!–and so I know trees can be dangerous.
I like trees, bu another gift the previous owners treated with and left us is a tree which drops thousands of tiny leaves and sap on the cars and driveway year-long. I suspect we’ll eventually rid ourselves of it.
When I sent you photos in May of the tree trimming I had done – removal of olive tree, trimming of my giant redwood – you were impressed & said, “You may have started something.” Guess maybe I did!
Art, Diane was impressed by the tree trimming you had done in May. Our timing was just a little different based on the high demand here for tree trimming services!
These tree stories remind me of my own experiences. It seems to me that many people just don’t think into the long term developments – especially regarding trees and even bushes.
My first wife’s ex had two pine trees planted near the garage. In the year 2000 after Xmas Southern Germany had a big storm “Lothar” which destroyed several forests even leading to closing down part of the Autobahn.
In the afternoon I saw one of these pines shaking like crazy so I moved our two cars sitting in front of the garage back behind the house and late at evening I heard a really loud crash …
The tree had fallen across our parking space and would have destroyed them both.
Then I was lucky:
I told a carpenter that I knew about this and he proposed having the other tree taken down as a training for the local firemen – to which he belonged. So they came and had a few beers on me after the work.
The biggest work was taking down a gigantic walnut tree on the neighbouring place of my sister in law – But the good news is that walnut wood is used for furniture and stairs and is also really precious so someone in the family took it down and kept the wood as payment.
The last experience we had was bamboo which grew like crazy all over. In the end we used a lot of “Roundup” – which you get in canisters really cheap in Hungary while in Germany it is sold in small bottles only. But it just had to be.
So I tell everybody to think of the long term consequences – How will this look in 3ß years?
Wolf, I like your Tom Sawyer-like approach to get the firemen to take that tree down!
Roundup has been found to cause Parkinson’s Disease and the airwaves here are full of commercials by lawyers wanting people to file lawsuits.
Bob, we have those constant lawyer commercials about Roundup on our local TV channels. Yet, Roundup is still being sold!