Friday 31 August 2007

Lumberrrrrr!

7:30am... the sound of heavy machinery outside. I look out of the window.... 4 trucks, an army of burly men in hard hats, and a scruffy little guy in a bandana carrying a massive chain saw.

They're here to cut down the dead maple tree. The trees lining this street were planted when the houses were built. This one must be at least 100 years old.

The cherry picker lifts the skinny chain saw guy to the top of the tree and he starts cutting the main limbs, which are lowered to the street by a mobile crane.

The branches are fed into a shredder that chews them into sawdust instantly.

The final trunk is cut and lowered onto the flatbed with the rest of the wood.
The chain saw cuts through the wood as if it was butter, or jello.
No problem.


And less than 90 minutes later the crew is ready to move on to the next tree surgery.
They have trimmed the dead top branches of one 75' high maple, and completely removed another. They have swept and vacuumed the street, and there's not a twig or a grain of sawdust left to show that they were there.
Just a stump remains.


23 comments:

  1. Cuts through wood like butter??!!

    Interesting!

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  2. I know that even trees don't live forever but it's always sad when they go.

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  3. Maple tree! Butter!

    I'm fantasying about maple smoked bacon right now. I haven't had lunch yet and am sooo hungry.

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  4. So many wonderful things in your blog....hoping your foot is better. did the wedding happen yet?

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  5. Boy, we sure could use them on our Michigan property!
    It takes my husband almost a week to cut and dispose of one sick oak tree...

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  6. I hate to see trees cut down unless they are dead. They offer so much to the environment and its too late once they are gone. Still sometimes that is the solution and yes, they do have all kinds of equipment now to dispose of trees.

    Thanks for visiting my blog today and talking about the telephone.

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  7. Those are some really efficient workers! They are men, AND they actually clean up after themselves.
    AMAZING!!!!

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  8. That's a fast job from start to finish. For the sake of the other trees sometimes its best to cut the sick one down but it still makes me sad.

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  9. Oh we had some trees that were on the property next to us, and they were huge, it was so scary because we have high winds here. and the trees were right over our last two rooms at the motel. Took 5 calls and a threat call to the city and they finally got the owners to cut it down. Took 2 days to do it.
    Hope your all having a good Labor Day weekend

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  10. Men that clean up after themselves....amazing!!!

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  11. If that was to happen here, the job would have lasted days, there would have been brances and twigs left all over the place and saw dust blowing about for weeks.

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  12. O.M.G. Ex, you will not even believe this, but the tree cuter downer guys were on my block last week! They felled a sick sweet gum tree and trimmed another. I took photos too, of course! :) Hilarious that across our continent in different countries but in our respective front yards, the same thing was happening. Oh, but they didn't start till 9am here, yay!

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  13. Now that's what I call a professional job.

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  14. I am glad that you are staying out of it, who are these mad fools on my blog?

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  15. The shredder is an amazing piece of equipment, and could be very dangerous, great shots of the tree removal process

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  16. Great sequence of shots. I'm always intrigued by men working with big, noisy, dirty machines. I think of them as little boys whose fantasies have come true.

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  17. You are right - those lyrics I posted today are as your recall. There is also a child's nursery rhyme with similar words and many remembered that when they saw the first line.

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  18. That's efficency!
    Well, yes, it's somehow sad when the old trees have to go.
    Also, sometimes they have to cut all the branches and the trees look so naked..., but a couple of weeks they look nice and fresh again.

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  19. I forgot to say: The titel of your post is excellent!!

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  20. sounds like hard work...!

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  21. Quite sad really, but swift! Can you e-mail me your address please as being the closest to 9000, who left a comment.As soon as I finish the peg doll it will be winging its way across the Atlantic to you! Just go to my profile and click email in the Contact bit!
    Your not far off 9000 either!!!

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  22. Oh! It reminds me of this cartoon movie I watched when I was a kid (I wish I could remember the name!) when one fairy-tree sprite touches the stump of a freshly felled tree and says to the other "Can't you feel it's pain?"
    I'm sure it's all for the best. So you had a Veedub? "My" one is up to $18,100 now...ah, a girl can still dream though, right?

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  23. We have a couple trees in out Atlanta yard that could use them. Are they available?

    It's amazing how quickly they can do this job!!!

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