If a Tree is Sawed Down in Your Back Yard, Does it Make a Sound?

Short Answer: Yes.

Long Answer: In mid November we received an email from our property manager that said, "Hello. We will be removing the large willow on the front side of the home November 27th. The willow in the back yard will be trimmed up. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!"  Well, that was a bit of a mystery to us since neither of the trees in the "front" of the house are willows (I honestly wonder if any of our trees are "willows" but I'm not a botanist).  We had a few things in the yard that needed to be moved (swing set, lift chair) before any major tree removal happened, but since we weren't sure exactly which trees were being taken care of and our emails to our property manager were never returned, we just had to wait and see and be ready for anything.  We moved the chair into a little shed/shack in the back yard.  The swing set (the slide/play house part anyway) came inside.  (Yes, we have a slide in our house.  And it's awesome!  But that is another story.)

November 27th came and I heard voices outside and saw people wandering around inspecting the trees.  The main guy told me he was actually the backup tree guy - since the original tree guy's chipper was broken down in the canyon ("it's really bad") he was going to be taking over the job.  But not till Friday (the 1st).  At least we now knew exactly which trees he was working on: the big one in the back (I guess it's a willow?) that leans over the house (and had been the site of Gregg's chair) was going to be removed (hallelujah!) and the one on the side was being trimmed (also good news).

Friday came and went and we had our own tree cutting experience.  But nobody ever came to work on our big problem trees.  Finally on Monday, the 4th, the crew was back, this time with a chipper and a giant cherry picker lift.  Then the fun began.  For three days we had sawdust and branches and logs (!) raining down on our yard, and sounds of chainsaws and giant thumps serenading us all day long.  Finally, the last ginormous chunk of trunk was popped off the stump and sawed into smaller (but still huge) chunks and loaded up and carried away.  All we have left is a massive stump (when I stand in the middle and stretch out my arms it's about that wide) and a layer of sawdust covering every surface in our back yard.  And don't forget the craters in the frozen ground made by the log chunks pounding the ground continually.

It was definitely an entertaining (I didn't think Sam and Cal were paying attention, but I heard a big thump outside and then from Sam "that a big one!" and when I peeked in the living room, he and Cal were sitting at the window eating crackers and watching the show) and educational few days. While we'll definitely miss the shade from that big old tree, I'm definitely grateful it's gone (and that I didn't have to pay to have it removed!).  Phew!

Day one: we got back from the library and they'd already
gotten rid of a bunch of the branches.

On the ground crew helper guy guides a big branch
tied to a rope to the ground.

Watching from the living room - here's another
big branch tied to a rope to be lowered safely down.

Monday evening the tree looked like this.

Tuesday morning the logs started raining down.

bonus videos!

"thud!"

(the second video, the longest one, isn't that exciting, really, because

I had to turn to stir something on the stove and of course that's when

that big chunk fell.  I heard and felt it for sure, but didn't even get to see it,

let alone record it, darn it!)

By the end of Tuesday, the tree looked like
this.  I was worried they were going to leave
the stump like this, but they just moved on
to the back/side tree branch trimming so they
could return the cherry picker machine and not
have to rent it for one more day.

And at last, that last piece is off the base.
They made quick work of it, sawing it into
movable chunks.  And now we're left with sawdust
for days!