I know once upon a time the #treetuesday tag was pretty popular. I don't know if it is still around, but I am going to write a post for it anyway. I picked the #amazingnature community to post it into because we are talking about trees after all...
This is my back yard and the large maple tree that used to take up residence there. That's right, used to, now I am slightly sad to say it is gone.
You see, just about a year ago, we suffered this tragedy at the hands of said tree. Thankfully, the branch that fell off just narrowly missed our house. It did some significant damage to our deck, but I was able to fix that for the most part.
It was a pretty scary day. My wife basically watched it fall because she had just brought our dog in from being outside. A few seconds longer and we could have lost a lot more than a couple of deck rails.
If you jump back to the first photo, you will notice that the tree has several large "V" splits. Basically if we were to ever lose the right section it would fall on our neighbors shed. The worse case scenario is the left side falling which would either hit our bedroom or the neighbors house.
As much as I loved the tree and the mid-day shade it provided, I knew it probably had to come down.
We had a tree service come out and take a look. Wanting to cover all my bases and not quite sold on the idea of removing it completely, I asked him for options. The problem is, due to the way it is growing he couldn't reduce the risk to the houses without severely compromising the integrity of the remaining portion of the tree. Ultimately, I had to bite the $2000+ bullet and make the decision to have them move forward with the removal.
Lest you think I am a horrible nature hating thug, let me give you my reasons:
This is the most important one... ever since the wind storm that knocked that first branch down, my wife and I get a bit of PTSD each time the wind kicks up. Action was necessary for our mental health
The chance for loss of life was too great if this thing came down on one of the houses. Those remaining branches are huge. This should probably be the first reason, but oh well.
The chance for loss of property was also too great.
The debris and shade from the tree on the one corner of the house was having an adverse impact on the roof.
The leaves in the fall and seed pods in the spring get everywhere. It was becoming almost unmanageable to keep the deck and yards clean.
When we came home from work last Thursday the tree was mostly gone. They had it cut down to just above the first "V" and they were cutting chunks off and knocking them down with the bucket truck.
When we returned home from our camping trip on Sunday, this was the resulting view. At some point they should be returning to grind up the stump and also take care of that small stump in the middle of the yard to the right there.
It is still sinking in for me. As the tree guy said, "Despite my job, I hate cutting down trees, but I understand the concern with this one being so close to the house".
I often look out at where it used to stand the way you might stand at a memorial. We haven't been in this house very long, but the tree was a part of our home and on some level it will be missed.
We have a really nice tree in our front yard that grows wide versus tall and it gives a good deal of shade. My hope is to maybe plant something like that out near where that other stump is. Far enough away from the house and fence that it shouldn't cause a problem, but as it grows it will provide shade and enjoyment for us and the future owners of the house.
Any of you nature folk have thoughts on what kind of tree I should look for? Preferably something that doesn't drop all the seed pods like the old one!
All pictures taken by myself or 
