I've lived in my little home for 11 years now. When I moved in to the house, I had three large cottonwood trees that towered over the house. One in the front yard, NE side, and two in the back yard, SW and SE side.The shade the trees provided was great for breaking the heat of the summer and wonderful for the windbreak for both winter and summer storms.
As the years have passed the trees began to show signs of aging. I guess the type of cottonwood trees in my yard have a life span of about 30 years and then they die off rapidly. My house was built in 1962 and the old westerly neighbor, an elder lady, told me that the two trees in the back yard were planted shortly after the house was built. They were past their prime in 1992.
Large branches off the main trunck were beginning to fall during wind storms and snow storms. After the blizard of 2003 we discovered a branch became impaled in the roof above Ashleigh's bedroom and had to be repaired so the roof would not leak.I eventually had to have one of the trees cut down and the stump ground. I stayed home for the first day of that job. The arborists had their boom truck extended as far as it would go and then were standing on the outside of the boom bucket to cut the branches that still extended another 10'-15' above their heads. I couldn't stay to watch the rest of the tree come down.
Shortly after Jeff moved out, I had another tree service come and start cutting the remaining tree down. I got a good deal for what was remaining and hoped to have the tree gone for good. They got so far and quit on me and I haven't seen them since!
What you cannot see in these first two pictures is that there is still about 10' above the line where the pictures cuts off.
We recently met our new westerly neighbors and they were really pushing that I get this 20' plus stump cut down so that they wouldn't have to look at this eye sore from their "new" home.
I called The Tree Guys and had them come out to give me a quote for the price of finishing the removal of this tree and grinding of the left over stump.
I scheduled for the next weekend as they were trimming the trees for the new neighbors that same weekend and they thought that if they cut my tree down, they could use my yard to get to the trees in their yard.Well, they were mostly finished with my tree when the skies opened up and dumped three days of rain so they couldn't finish the tree or the neighbor's trees as planned that weekend.
What you are seeing here is just the very most bottom of the stump. They had to get out of there in a hurry because the lightning was more than anyone could handle and the skies spit the rain as if it was an ocean! Four days later and with a lot of grinding...
...now all that is left is a pile of mulch that I need to get moved into gardens, but first, I have plenty of weeds that need to be pulled!!!Work is never ending!!!
