Friday, April 26, 2024

MAKE LIKE A TREE, AND LEAVE! ...WHERE DID MY HUGE OAK TREE GO???


Unfortunately I had to have my big beautiful oak tree in the backyard cut down because it had an unstoppable disease. This tree was one of the top 3 reasons I bought the house... the trunk measured over 14 ft in circumference... I had plans to run a zipline from it and a bunch of other fun ideas. 
  
One thing that complicated using the tree for fun (and complicated cutting it down) was that there were power lines going along 2 sides of the tree. In recent months huge limbs started breaking off and hitting the power lines. 
  
So I had to say goodbye to Ole Oakley. But the tradeoff is that I just gained about 1200 square feet of usable space that I couldn't use before (Score for me & GTD!!)... plus 2 or 3 winters worth of firewood! I would have rather kept the tree, but the new usable space is a nice silver lining! 
  
And now that I've got less shade & more sunshine I see a garden in my future... and maybe a workshop... and maybe a new spot for my gym equipment... or maybe a spot for the GTD trailers... or maybe a spot for a few bounce houses hahaha! The options are almost unlimited! 
  
We tried to get some large slabs of the tree for live edge tables & counter tops, but we were told by the arborist that this was a Water Oak and they don't cure well and keep cracking & checking... plus it has to dry for 1 year per inch of thickness so 2-3 years before I could do anything with it. So not getting any slabs is okay because I sure don't need anymore projects on my to-do list that I can't ever get around to LOL!
  
Cut down sections of the main trunk were weighing in at over 8000 lbs!!
  
Big thanks to BAM'S TREE SERVICE for making quick work of this job. They are sending out the stump grinder next. 
  
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