Four parts to this one, all done in a day.
The redbuds along the driveway went first. Redbuds shed deadwood as they age, and a driveway is the one place you notice it — every dead limb over the pavement is a limb that eventually lands on a car. Those were cleaned of anything dead or dying and left shaped.
The big beech in the back yard came next, trimmed up to about fifteen to twenty feet off the lift. A beech that size is not a climbing job when a basket can reach it — the lift puts the saw exactly where the cut is, and the tree keeps its bark intact where spikes would have scarred it.
The reason we were really there was the oak. A large spar had split away and was leaning toward the house, and a lean like that dictates everything: the cut order, the rigging, and where every piece is allowed to go. It came off the lift in sections, rigged so nothing swung toward the roof.
The brush all went through the chipper, the heavier wood was hauled off, and an old brushpile in the back yard left with it. Ground protection mats went down before the lift crossed the yard.




