The Monterey Pine forest here is not well rooted. With a usually scant rainfall and not the best soil, the roots tend to go sideways and shallow rather than down and deep. So sadly they sometimes fall. One storm a few years ago brought down over 100 trees and left much of the town without power for 2-4 days. The storms this season again brought down some trees right onto people's houses. Our neighbors have enjoyed a healthy pine but were finding the foundation of their home invaded by the roots and were getting increasingly nervous about the possibility of having it fall on their house. They made the tough decision to have it removed. I seem to get attached to trees around here and document them before they go. I am more closely attached to this one however :-) as it is now spread all over our property!
Work in action with the crane and chainsaws.
The tree work is done.
The wood was chipped and delivered to our driveway. The picture doesn't seem to show it but I swear this mound was the size of an RV.
With a little help, I shoveled and wheelbarrowed these chips for 4 days. We shared with neighbors but the pile only seemed to get bigger! I got it down to the size of VW bug and was relieved to have the help of a man with a backhoe :-) Up the hill on the other side of the fence, we needed a stump removed from a tree that fell in one of the storms. He pulled it out and then made several trips to scoop up the rest of the chips and unload them on the upper section. What a relief not to have to wheelbarrow up that hill!
Now we have continued weed control and our driveway back :-)
There is that weed control 'paper' under most of the chip area. I may decide to grow something someday but in the meantime, I'm happy with my rocks and wood chips!
Well, I do have a few flowers.
that seems like a lot of work for a birthday vacation. :) It looks very pretty though!
ReplyDeleteI let my backyard lawn die last year with the plan of putting down weed barrier and tan bark...somewhere I need to borrow some energy to do it...do you have any left? Can I have it? I hope mine yard will look as nice as yours (if it ever gets done).
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