Tree Work by JoJac's

Three trees (two ash, one cottonwood) the day before work started:

First to be felled were the two ash trees. The following photo shows Louis (cutting up the trees for chipping) and Cornelio (getting the grinder into position for grinding out the stumps - when the stumps are cut off).

The two ash trees having been felled, the following photos show Cornelio (Cornello?), Corbin, & Louis (Lewis?) bringing down the cottonwood tree. This time, it was Cornelio who did the up-in-the-tree work although the guys assured me that they all did that sort of thing. Previous to this venture, it had always been Benny up there. He trained, at least, Cornelio and then moved to a different department of JoJac's to do landscaping. The strain on one's body of doing the up-in-the-tree work gets to one after a while. Besides, putting things in is not nearly as dangerous as taking them out - even if that didn't figure into Benny's decision.

Below, that's Corbin pulling the branch away from Fred's fence. Even though some of the branches grew out past that line of our property, AFAIK not a leaf touched Fred's property.

Cornelio "caught" me taking photos and "posed" for me (photo, below). I did not wish the guys to notice me and my activities while engaged in their dangerous assignment. Distraction can be deadly! Until the tree trunk was on the ground, I stayed in the house, on the back porch, in the garage, or on the driveway - well away from the danger zone so as not to distract the workers. 

When the main trunk of the tree comes down, they want the mass and strength of two guys on the guide line. That would be Corbin and Louis. Unfortunately, one of Adam's relatives (Adam lives next door to us on the other side of our yard) came over to talk to the guys about doing some work on Adam's trees, at this point - ignoring the distraction he might be causing. He could have waited for the guys to have been on break for the disruption.

Hunky Husband came out of his bedroom from his nap, having been wakened by the "thud" of the trunk's hitting the ground.

At this point, all three guys hustle getting the limbs and trunk cut into "manageable" chunks. Many of the chunks required two men to roll them onto a dolly for transport to the storage area near Fred's fence. The next day would find the guys back with a flat trailer to haul off the wood that was too large to put through the chipper (the yellow contraption toward the right edge of the photo, below). They made several trips with that trailer to get all of the wood hauled off.

Cornelio, Corbin, and Louis had put in a full day. They must eat 5,000-10,000 Kilocalories each day to maintain their body weights with the exertion their jobs require.

The diameter of the trunk at a few inches above the ground was about three feet. I don't have the skill to read the tree rings or I might have been able to guestimate the age of the cottonwood tree.

 

BTW: The JoJac's guys still had other work to do the second day - cleaning out a couple of brush piles that I had made from smaller trees and brush that I had moved since their last foray into our woods, and trimming the front lawn's gingko tree back from overhanging the eaves of the house. The first photo, below, shows the guys getting ready to chip materials from the brush piles while the second shows the gingko tree following trimming.

After the crew left on the 2nd day:

Comments

[bogie]

I find it sad when the big old trees have to come down. Understandable, but sad. Looks like they did a fine job with the removal.

[Cop Car]

It's rather like having a beloved pet put down. I'll miss those trees! (Your dad says that he already has a hard time visualizing where the cottonwood stood.) I'm not looking forward to the time when I will have the gingko in the front lawn taken out. I wasn't as aware of the wildfire danger 21 years ago when I sited it as now I am.

[Joared]

Interesting photo series showing the progress to bring down that tree. I had read about how that's done but never happened to see it done in photos or real life. Having been the one who notched some pretty tall pines to bring them down where I wanted them to fall and then being on the other end of a crosscut saw to facilitate that happening this was intriguing. That's pretty risky work they were doing.

[Cop Car]

I've not been on one end of a two-person saw since we lived in Seattle. HH and I cannot do physical labor together. HH has a fast internal clock while mine is slow. I was fortunate that Hal, from across the street, had a slow internal clock and was willing to be on the other end of the saw from me. Of all the trees that I have felled, I only had one fall at about 15 degrees to the line I had intended. That one was back in our current woods and had grown, corkscrewing upward, making it more difficult to judge how to place the notch/cut.

The notch that Cornelio cut in the cottonwood was huge; but, his chain saws made his work less strenuous if no less dangerous. His skill minimized the risk.