Tag Archives: tree

Taking Out A Black Willow

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.

“Perhaps the best Yuletide decoration is being wreathed in smiles.” ~Author Unknown

With only 11 days left until yule and 14 days left until Christmas, I’m starting to panic a little. I’ve been knitting, crocheting, and plotting up a storm since the beginning of November, but I’ve really kicked it into high gear. The actual hidden blessing in the current lack of sub calls is that I’ve been able to work on chores around the house and presents.

This year is an even more frugal holiday season than last. Granted, we give thanks to the wonderful tree that has graced out living room this year.

We’ve been calling him Shakespeare. I don’t really know why, but that seems to be the name that he’s been telling us to call him by. All the ornaments that are on him are handmade. There are very few right now, but that will change over the years, no doubt.

As you can tell, there’s only one present under him for now. (Lucky hubby, his is the first one under the tree!) That will change today.

All of these need to be wrapped at some point. With the incoming storm, it will probably be today. We’re all very excited as this is the first big storm so far this year. For posterity, here’s a couple beautiful before photos from around our house. I’ll post comparison ones after the storm, so probably some time tomorrow.