is it a tree feller or a fella up a tree

They say from a small acorn doth the mighty oak grow. Well ash trees grow too. And the ash tree behind our house has been there for a very long time. 45 years ago it was just a nice 15 foot tree and as the years roll but so another ring on the tree grow. Sadly it has something called ash dieback and as a branch was hanging well over the kitchen roof if we had not had it taken down it could have caused a lot of damage.  I counted up to 60 rings on one of the branches  so that will make the branch 60 years old . I will let the grandchildren count the rings on the actual stump to see how many they can count..to know how old it really is .Well that will be their maths lesson for the day and keep them quiet for all of 3 minutes.

We were very lucky to have found Oliver of Bilsdale Tree Surgery by recommendation of another tree man who doesn't do jobs like this. It is a very skilled job I understood that .You have to have a head for heights and know which way a tree will fall. I love using Jacks chainsaw at any opportunity I can ...it is a bit like using the strimmer. You can see where you have been and have more or less instant results .

Of course it needs specially trained people with specialist equipment and huge saws and heavy ropes and pulleys. It is all very interesting to watch. Had I been 30 years younger maybe I would have been the only female tree feller in the country. I have half a head for heights and perhaps you just get used to it. I remember climbing the bales in the Dutch barn as a child. Going up was ok but I used to hold on for dear life as I made my descent.
Jack would be no good for the job as I remember when we were in Canada. I had to book months in advance to eat at the revolving tower in Calgary which is 155 metres high and revolves every 45 minutes getting a wonderful view of the city.  Well it wasn't quite the treat it was supposed to be .To get to the restaurant you walked over a glass floor on the top floor. If you had seen Jack ,he was like a stubborn sheep who just won't budge. I thought he was teasing me to begin with as Japanese tourists who were going to dine posed on the glass even laid down on it  to have their photos taken with nothing but a piece of glass between them and the ground 450 ft away .... Jack turn pale then red., yellow then green. I am sure he would have got a job as a mobile traffic light . He really couldn't hack it so we had to cancel our reservation and opted to eat on ground level.

Anyway back to the tree. It took nearly 2 days to get it all down but oh it has brought in so much sunlight and in another post I will tell you all about what I found in the underneath . There is now firewood to last us a very long time .This is just one of the piles in the photo but it will lay where it is to dry out for some time yet .
So if you have a tree that needs felling and need to know of someone reliable remember Oliver and his gang from Bilsdale Tree Surgery.  And if you are as lucky as I was I got treated to a sausage sandwich . They really make a good job and tidy up well. They burn the brash and the second day they barbecued their lunch in the hot embers

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