This was the NW-facing view from my front porch on Saturday, March 27th at 9:30 am:
Please notice that there really isn’t much to see because of the world’s largest magnolia tree. This particular tree was planted over 40 years ago and is, by most accounts, “the damn biggest one of those I’ve ever seen”.
This tree has been my nemesis for the 2+ years we’ve lived in our house. Just like everyone else I thought it would be cool to have a big tree in our yard. I even broke out my best “I loove magnolia”, from the old Foghorn Leghorn cartoon. I was willing to play ball. When we got to our first Spring I was very surprised to see how many leaves the tree was dropping, as well as the number of seed pods that we call ‘grenades’ because of their size and shape. Well, the leaves were killing my grass and the ‘grenades’ were killing my lawn mower. The leaves were too heavy to blow away and the seed pods were too hard and dense to rake with a leafrake. I actually tried metal raking the whole yard once, just to get all of the ‘grenades’ up. What a waste of time. Within 3 days my yard looked like I hadn’t even touched it. That was when I decided that I the tree would have to go.
Now, I know it’s an expensive thing to have a tree removed. Especially a tree as large and dense as our goddamn magnolia. Here in Richmond it’s even more expensive since we had Hurricane Isabel blow through last fall. The sheer volume of fallen trees let the tree services pretty much charge whatever they wanted so prices have gone through the roof. I didnt even bother to call, but other guestimates I heard from people put the removal of my tree in the $2-$3k range. Too damn much.
Luckily I have the damn handiest uncle in the whole world who is more than willing, and able, to help out a nephew in need. Bruce had cleared most of his 16 acres by hand so I had no doubt in his ability to knock down my big-ass magnolia. Here are some more pictures:
This is Bruce cutting some limbs after the first (of three) sections were cut down. Also, I live in America.
More Bruce. This time going to town on the second large section. Making logs!
Um… yeah. That’s me standing safely out of harm’s way. I swear I did work, though. Really!
This is the same view from my front porch as the first picture above. It’s getting better. I took this one at 10am on Sunday, March 28th.
I worked myself like a dog until dark on Sunday so I don’t have any photos of the job being done. We got it all down to a small stump and a shitload of leaves and twigs. I spent from 6-8pm on Monday trying to clean up the yard before it started to rain. Raking sucks, fyi. But it’s a little easier knowing that it’s the last time I have to do it. I’m exhausted, but secretly giddy at having a front yard with 2 halves.
There are some other great stories form this weekend of logging and I hope to get them posted before I forget too much. I also want to get some photos up of the finished yard. Back soon!
