Over on my personal blog, I posted a little snippet about the black willow that we had to take down this past weekend.
The tree itself stood roughly 70 feet tall. At it’s base (which is measured normally about three feet off from the ground), the tree had a circumference of roughly 104 inches, meaning it had a diameter of roughly 33 inches. (If I did my math right, but I doubt it. I’m not a math teacher, I’m an English teacher.) For a better idea of how large this tree was, take a look at the next picture in which Joe, my brother Peter, and Howard Charles (a friend of the family) are walking towards the tree.
This next picture was after the tree fell, just to show the height (now length) of the tree.
While it was a little heart wrenching to see this gentle giant go, it was time. According to Howard, who is a professional logger with a lot of experience, the tree was at the end of its natural life cycle and was indeed posing the threat we thought it was. AFter dropping the tree, we were able to see that it was already rotting as far down as the stump.
While that little area of rot may not look like much, it can advance really quickly and leave the tree in a weakened state, making it very unsafe. There were already numerous limbs that had fallen off last summer. We had a feeling that the tree was already slowly dying. On the plus side, it will give us a large supply of wood (possibly three cords) that we can use in the outdoor wood boiler, if we’re lucky enough to get that next year.
