Success! Without A Story!

Yesterday morning, quite early, we dropped the big gum tree that was too close to the house, garage and house tanks. Our tree lopping friend had first identified at as a potential danger when we did the first round of lopping at Easter. A "widow maker" he called it.

We borrowed a very long rope from our friend and added a length of chain, just to be sure.

"Geez, I hope it works".

There's the poor old clothesline, on the ground again.

Here we go - first job was to take a chock out of the tree. Note the use of full PPE.

The Helpers were safely hidden away; it's one thing to have a tree branch fall on your head (and end up at the vet on steroids for a week); it's another thing to have an entire tree fall on you. There'd be no vet visit. They weren't very happy. Poofy stopped smiling and Coco cried.

I sat in the car, taking up the rope slack, waiting for the dropped arm command from R that would signal it was time to plant my foot (the signal that never actually came). I had discussed with him what to look for when it was getting close to falling.

In the end I just kept soft pressure on the accelerator and kept the rope tight. When I saw that G was around the back of the tree I knew it wouldn't be long so I gave a little rev and the tree started to come so I gave it a bit more and down she came.

Success!! It's down - without a single casualty!! House, clothesline, garage, Helpers and people all safe. There was plenty of back slapping and high fives and even some nervous laughter between the boys. It seems they may have been a little more nervous than they let on.....

The area is totally opened up now and we'll be able to plant the Spartans.

It all went to Plan. We actually did something and there's NO STORY. What a nice change! All done by 6am. We went inside for tea, coffee and scrambled eggs.



Now we just need the tree fairy to come along, cut it up and take it away.