Squirrel Eviction

 One of my neighbors got evicted yesterday morning,  And rather rudely evicted, at that.

A crew from the city showed up yesterday morning to remove the tree in front of neighbor Jane's house, as we knew they would eventually.  They made short order of it, too, arriving around 9 in the morning and finished by 1:30 in the afternoon - with an hour lunch break.  This crew had an extendable grabber with a saw, so they just had to grab a branch, cut it off, then bring it down, all with a remote control.  While they made quite a mess out there, unavoidable, they also cleaned it up very well, too.

After trying to determine how old it was when I posted about it last I had been planning on going out there when they were done, brushing off the sawdust and getting the cross section wet to better see the rings.  Then I wanted to get some good, clear pictures so I could enlarge them on the computer and get a count.  Our house was built in 1947, so I was thinking the tree was probably planted right about that time, give or take a couple years.

Anyway, I was working all day out of view of the tree while my wife was off taking care of her dad, so I only got up and grabbed a few pictures here and there.  Neighbor Jane is retired so sat on her front porch and watched the whole thing.  When it came time to bring the big trunk down I took a few minutes away from work and walked out to watch and talk to her.  

Once it fell, both our jaws dropped as we gasped at the sight of how hollow it was.

If we had known this sooner the tree would have been reported and removed long ago.  Scary to think of a tree that big falling on anyone's house. I'm sure we've all seen similar on the news before, and I'd really rather not have to go though that if at all possible.  But, you can't always spend your time worrying about what might be or happen, either.  We still have neighbor Dave's tree, same kind of maple and likely the same age but passed the city arborist's muster, I guess.  We'll enjoy our last remaining big tree in front of the house while we still can.