My Lovely Maple

Well, this is not my maple at its loveliest. I couldn't even find a photo of it in full leaf, but it really was beautiful. But 80 years ago it wasn't pruned properly and it had 4 large branches coming out of the trunk. Back in Decmember we lost one branch which gratefully fell all the way to the ground. In February we lost another large branch but this time it hung vertically and it was too dangerous for Houston to get up there and cut it down. Leave it to the professionals.


And that pro is Mike, my tree guy. He's also an arborist and he recommended we take the entire tree down because he'd just have to come next year to do it because it was dying. This is the fourth very large tree we've lost, the other 3 were oaks. Our house used to be totally shaded in the summer. We had such a nice canopy.


Mike cut into it


and some more

and Victor pulled it taut.

It appears that the tree will fall on Mike's truck but really it was yards from it.

In fact, the maple fell exactly where he wanted it to. Now we have to cut it all up and it will be warming us next winter. I'd much prefer it shading us this summer. Houston was taping the whole thing and got about 10 minutes of Mike cutting, Mike walking around the tree, Mike cutting some more and 30 seconds before the tree actually fell, his video camera ran out of power. Doh!


This is Mike last year when he took our oak down. Now I just have to get the nursery and get a few more trees.