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photo taken on 6 April 2004
7 July 2008 / Monday -- over the years the huge ash tree at the curb facing my bathroom window was mentioned numerous times in my news pages as a nesting place for turtle doves, where they laid their eggs and raised their young-- it had grown higher than the roof, always shed leaves that stopped up the roof drain gutter, attracted woodpeckers and squirrels in this inner city location, which I enjoyed watching -- it was fun to look out the window as I peed to watch the critters nesting or pecking or whatever, and the shade did keep that side of the property somewhat cooler in the summer. It had grown over several electric / phone cables -- I had it trimmed a couple times in the last 2 years, just enough to keep the branches away from the side walls. It was leaning several degrees toward the street due to the thick branches on that side of the tree -- each year it would seem to list farther to the street side, raising large sections of the cement sidewalk -- this was becoming a problem because the roots constantly grew in girth toward the property causing several centimetre rises in the paving -- pieces of the concrete became loose and made walking and shoveling snow more difficult than it had to be ...
About three years ago I saw some trucks trimming trees everywhere on the neighboring streets, so I went over to one of them and asked them if they would not mind trimming some overhanging branches on this one -- he showed me a map of the streets he had to work on, with each and every tree circled, BUT my side street was not even on the friggen map! I then called City Hall several times since then and complained that my tree does not seem to officially exist, and that it is growing over many cables, which is not good. I never heard back from them, as usual.
Another detail about this nice tree that has probably been here for nearly a century is that the base has a sizable hollow in it -- I have seen birds, squirrels and a young opossum crawling inside the space at ground level looking for food or whatever -- I would say the hole is one third of the trunk width -- the girth of the trunk is 69 inches [ = 5.75 feet = 175 cm ] --
the inside of the trunk has been eaten away, probably by termites -- in time it would further rot and simply fall over, perhaps falling on a car or some pedestrian -- the roots would tear up the sidewalk and possibly take a part of my side wall with it. It has been a constant worry for me for quite some time, needless to say.
Interestingly, as I worked on getting some scans and stuff for eBay this morning, I heard some loud noises in front of my place -- the city was trimming the small tree they planted in front, so I rushed out and asked if they could take a look at the large one on the side street -- they called some supervisor and said that he would come over to take a look, that they need a work order to do anything. Within about 10 minutes their boss dude showed up, looked at the tree and said it MUST come down, it is unsafe and could come fall at any time [which I knew, of course] -- he then searched through the stack of work orders he had in a clipboard, and miraculously found MY TREE -- I was amazed. He also looked at the raised sidewalk and said the city would have to repair that too because it is dangerous for those walking there [DUH, I knew that too, from a couple years experience]
He asked me to move the van and Honda -- huh, they would begin the removal immediately -- it was about 10h -- I moved the vehicles and their work truck pulled up on the side street, as one of the dudes started placing caution cones in the area and closed the side street to traffic --
as you can see, the tree had grown well above and over the roof again -- I guess it must be at least fifty feet high, give or take a few feet. Their truck towed a heavy duty shredder, and has an extending work station / bucket that reaches way above the telephone pole. Here one can note the pile of branches cut from one side of the tree --
the work continued at a good pace -- the dude with the chain saw saved the part closest to the property until last --
a view from the main street in front
while his compañero in the street put branches into the shredder -- amazingly it took even very thick branches, blowing the wood chips into the back of their truck [it was almost totally full when they finished] -- I made printouts of a couple of the pics and gave them to the guys -- they probably do not have photographs of the work they do in their family album -- I also gave them cold Cokes and a bottle of other liquid refreshment they could enjoy after work -- they thanked me profusely.
here we see what is left of the once decades old stately tree and some of the really thick cut branches that the shredder gobbled up in seconds -- this pic also nicely shows how the tree was noticeably leaning over toward the street
they cleaned up everything extremely well -- it took them some two hours to get the job done. I was told that the city will send some other tree removal peeps over to completely remove the trunk so that a fresh new tree could be planted in the same spot, then they will redo the sidewalk. I guess it should be done sometime before the winter sets in, hopefully.
Gracias, chicos -- es un trabajo bien hecho.
When and if the other ones do more work on what remains of the stump and fix the sidewalk, if I am home and the digital camera still works I hope to continue / complete this saga at that time, so stay tuned.
God Bless !
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