The tree is finally gone!

Today marked the continuation of the dead tree saga. Obviously, this went down before I started blogging. I'll do a little catching up here. When Jason & I bought our house last June, we knew we would have to take down a huge dead mesquite tree. After a couple months, Jason's dad came over to help trim it down. They were able to get rid of most of the bulk (without ladders, making it a bit scary). What was left was a solid tree trunk about 7 feet tall and almost 2 feet in diameter that we wanted to give to my uncle. His hobby is woodworking and we wanted it to go to someone who'll make something really cool out of it rather than use it as firewood. So today, my uncle came over with a couple of woodworkers and a tractor. The problem was that the tree was in our backyard and was way too big to fit through our fence door. Plus, the tractor was also too big to fit through the door. The tree guy cut down the huge trunk and then chained it to the tractor sitting in the front yard. Then, after some rolling of the trunk, they were able to drag the trunk to the front yard. Luckily, the yard wasn't even damaged! They estimated the trunk to weigh over 1000 pounds! That's a lot of wood!! Anyway, we thought we'd be working (or, watching in my case) for 2 or 3 house. Instead, they were done in 30 minutes! What a wonder! To refresh everyone's memory, here's what the tree stub looked like. I forgot to take out my camera, but I'm sure you can guess what our backyard looks like without a tree. This is the tree after only one limb was cut off.

Here's my hubby acting as the tree monkey. He was able to climb the tree without ladders. Plus, sometimes he & his dad were passing around the chainsaw while it was running and suspended on a rope! Talk about scary!

Finally, here's what was left of the tree that is now going off to the mill. This is an
"action" picture capturing the fall of the last limb. The tree trunk underneath is what is going. Fun times!