Relative Something

There is an evergreen tree beside our driveway down by the road that must have lost its leader long ago. Instead of growing up, it just gets bigger around every year. I looked back through the photo archives and found a picture I took from the road looking toward our property that reveals how small the tree was when we moved here in 2012.

The shape looked fine back then. I have no memory of the annual growth in the intervening years. Just that it became difficult to drive the lawn tractor between the tree and the fence in the last few.

I took this picture yesterday from the other direction before I planned to trim some branches:

The small tree in the background of the first picture and the foreground of the second picture is not the same tree. The first one died and we replaced it about four years ago with a transplant from up by the house. It was growing too close to the house so we decided to relocate it.

The bigger tree was getting so wide around the lower branches that I decided to take a chance at giving it a custom shape, primarily because it was already flat-topped due to the absence of a leader. I removed some lower branches entirely and then began lopping the ends of the remaining branches to create a symmetrical cylindrical shape.

There were so many big branches and cuttings on the ground to haul away that I decided to get the ATV and trailer for the job. That did not go as planned.

With our long span of uncharacteristically warm weather, I haven’t had a reason to drive the Grizzly so it was very reluctant to start. Meanwhile, the electric lawn tractor was still parked in front and would need to be moved. I had to retrieve the batteries from the shop where they were stored to avoid freezing.

That didn’t do much good because the frozen-solid mower was presenting an error code and wouldn’t move. I monkeyed around trying to solve the issue until it was time to feed horses. When they were tended to, I went down and dragged the cut branches to the other side of the driveway to be dealt with later.

The sun had long ago dropped below the horizon, but I took an “after” picture of the trees.

I don’t know if it looks okay or not but at least it will be easier to mow around next summer. It reminds me of a Dairy Queen Buster Bar ice cream treat in a way. It’ll have to do for now.

Today’s project will be to get the lawn tractor functioning so I can rearrange vehicles in the shop garage. We are finally getting accumulating snow so I will want the ATV for plowing soon.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like winter.

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