Relative Something

You can color me duly impressed by the grand tree-cutting performance for which we had front-row seats yesterday. A large crew of workers with an impressive assortment of equipment showed up at sunrise and started their third day of work on the collection of properties that make up our Wildwood Lodge Club association.

They had saved the more complicated trees requiring a boom truck for yesterday and they began with the most challenging one while they were fresh. It was a tree that had a deck built around it so it was close to the house and didn’t allow for letting cut chunks of the trunk to just free-fall.

By the time they got to our place, they’d already brought down more trees than I could keep track of, and the choreography of their process had people spread out across multiple properties, tending to all phases of cleanup behind the guy in the bucket truck. He was a one-man wrecking crew. Said he’d been doing this for 34 years and his ease of working the controls of the bucket and cutting with the chainsaw provided visible confirmation of the proficiency that decades of experience provide.

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After a period of contemplation before he started, bucket-guy wandered off to recruit an assistant to place some tires and plywood at the base of our tree to protect some shrubs and the pavers. Then he proceeded to drop every last limb and section of cut trunk in a pile directly on top of his target. Only one piece rolled away after landing. Everything else stayed right where he put it.

His only faux pas was letting go of his handhold on the chainsaw one time when he thought it was in the pocket of his bucket, but it wasn’t. Luckily, it landed harmlessly in the pile of debris below and he calmly navigated the bucket down to the truck, climbed out, walked around the truck to pick up the saw, and then when right back up to finish the job as if he meant to do that.

I discovered the attachment I need for the skid steer I don’t own yet. Hah! I worry that I would find it hard to learn how to drive a skid steer. I doubt I would live long enough to also operate a claw device like they used to pick up everything that lands on the ground.

I’m pretty sure that guy could successfully pick up a penny off a glass surface with that clamp and not scratch the glass. He grasped bundles of branches and twirled the jaws to drop them on top of other debris so he could then scoop up the larger pile and haul off in reverse to the vicinity of the giant wood chipper.

I told Cyndie’s mom, Marie, that I should probably put one of those machines on my Christmas wish list.

I took a picture of the tree before they started and then again after it was removed.

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We were surprised that it didn’t appear like there was a gaping hole after it was gone. With the big tree no longer there, the surrounding trees that weren’t as noticeable before suddenly took on a new stature and prominence.

Upon completion of their day’s work, it was the bucket guy’s perfect aim that left the greatest impression on me. I’ve cut some big trees and I know how tricky it can be to get them to comply with our humble intent.

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