Timber... at Steven and Keela's

This past summer we were up at our neighbor's house talking about the trees in their yard.  They had two trees that were starting to die.  One of them was leaning toward the house.  One was a monster oak tree that was approximately 90 feet high.  Of course when you have a friend with a backhoe and a willingness to help a neighbor out, you end up with a plan of "hey when it is cooler we can do that without you calling a professional".

Fast forward to a 65 degree day in January... Rod had cabin fever and was feeling the need to play on his toys.  So he called Steven and said "hey, lets do it this weekend".  So we have one system admin and one high school math teacher ready to work.  Never fear, all is ok, because we have at least 1 that is in flannel... In typical fashion, we had plans on Sunday and Rod said to me... we can do this in 2 hours.

Tree one went almost according to plan A.  The only problem was it got hung on another tree.  Rod was able to hook a chain up and twist and it came right on down.

Tree two took a little more planning.  After plan A, B, and C were deemed unsafe, the drop went according to plan D.  (this was after E, F, and I am not sure how many others were discussed and they went back to the original D).  This tree was huge!  I did already mention it was leaning toward the house..

Steven and tree two giving some perspective on how big around it is.

Plan A had them trying to put a cable as high as possible.. which is why the ladder is in the bucket of the backhoe.

To give another idea of the height... this is a 12 foot 2X4 and you can't see the top of the tree!

So the playing turned into work.  Breaking 2 steel cables and 6 hours of work later.. 2 trees were down, no one was hurt, the house was untouched, and Steven and Keela saved a few $'s.... success!

Click this link to see the video of it coming down! As Keela is doing the commentary..."Timber" is not the word you will hear when it falls...