I had an appointment with Bill Reagan to trim and
reset Rudy's shoes today so I was late getting back home. As I turned into
my street I noticed a big pickup truck parked in front of my
house. When I backed into my driveway, I was aware of "something
different"--there seemed to be an unusual amount of blue sky behind my house.
The truck belonged to Paul Krantz, owner of American Tree and Shrub, who had
given me a bid on $1000 to remove the carpenter-ant riddled maple in my
backyard. This tree was at least 60 feet high and so hemmed in by fences
and houses that it could not be reached by heavy equipment--companies who
bragged of their 65 foot bucket trucks were giving me estimates of $2500 and
telling me that they would have to take down all my fences to bring their
equipment in.
Last night, Paul had assured me that he could climb the tree and bring it down
by hand without damage to anything. He had told me that it would be at
least 3 weeks before he could work it
into his schedule. He took credit cards and would work with me on payment.
I called the credit union today but their interest rates weren't as good as I
hoped.
What had happened was this. Paul had another job scheduled about 2 blocks
away to trim a tree that had a power line
running right through it. The electric company cancelled on him at the
last minute so since he had the equipment and a crew of four handy he just came
over to my place. My next door neighbor said he arrived around 7am and it
took him most of the day to bring down the tree in sections using ropes and
scientifically cutting out wedges. She said when the main section came
down it shook her house like thunder.
I had requested Paul to leave the stump, as I would like to mount a tabletop on
it to replace the rotten picnic table. He left a stump slightly shorter
than I wanted but I think it will work. He saved 5 large sections of the
main truck that were sound and free of ants as I want to do a mini-Stonehenge
along my back fence line where it is too shady to grow anything. He
apologized but he said he couldn't stand the poison ivy and brush, so he cleaned
that out of my back treeline, around the pool--cleaned up everything and didn't
charge a penny extra for it.
The bare section of trunk where the bark had been peeled was almost completely
gone, and the tree could have fallen on my house at any moment. Even
before the two big branches had
come crashing down I had been worried about that tree. Besides the obvious
four foot scar where the bark had been ripped off facing the house, the tree had
been abused in various ways by hanging swings and chains. It seemed
spindly for its height. Besides, I was allergic to the blooms in the
spring and it produced millions of gutter clogging whirly-gigs.
Although I will miss the shade, I look
out in my backyard and see a miracle: the dangerous tree is gone, and my fences,
my house, my neighbors' houses and garden sheds are untouched.
Paul said that the fine large tree in my front yard is a white ash--the largest
he has ever seen. Since this is a very slow growing tree species, and the
girth of my tree is double the average size for a white ash he estimates that it
is over one hundred years old. It had been badly trimmed in the past, but
it is healthy. He said that now was the wrong time of year to prune it and
remove the stumps of hacked off branches. Give him a call in the fall, he
said. I will.