Bright Sunshiny Day

Oh my goodness, it's beautiful outside today. A little on the chilly side, but the sky couldn't be any bluer, with nary a cloud to be seen. The clothes are swaying in the breeze on the clothesline as I type.

Yesterday, on the other hand, the weather was far from perfect, in fact it was downright miserable. I felt so bad for they guys yesterday finishing up the tree work, although I guess I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let's back up a few days shall we? When I last wrote, I was waiting on tree guy #3, recommended to me by our friendly proprietor of Palm Gardens, the nursery where I purchased all the plants for the back yard. Because I already know that Bill from PG is really reliable I chose Jody Lee for the job. Bless his heart, he first quoted me $1,600 to which I replied, "Are you sure about that?" "Can you go $1,700?"
"You've got yourself a deal!"  He told me he'd pull a crew from a commercial job and start that afternoon. Well, start he did. Driving home from Palm Gardens, I pulled down our street to find five trucks and men in our yard, the staghorn already moved, and work begun in earnest.

The two other tree guys were going to use a crane, however, Jody said he could do it with a bucket truck, and so he did. Watching from Angela's front window it made me slightly nervous seeing the gigantic pieces dangling over the roof but true to his word, he got it done. Can you see where the limb broke off? Here's a better look at it and the reason we elected to take the tree down. As you can see, the limbs are all connected here and for all we knew, the two limbs hanging over the roof could have fallen out of the clear blue.

 

Piece by piece the mighty oak came down. While talking about a replacement tree with Bill I learned that they measure a tree 6" from the ground across the trunk. He told me he has a 4" caliper tree for $375 and a 7" for $575. Want to know how big the trunk on this tree measured? Well, sure you do! 37"

Yes, you read that right. Sad, very, very sad. That said, we always knew someday it would have to come down because of it's close proximity to the house. Way, way too close, so much so that it was lifting the foundation. I told you it was mighty! This is the last of the foliage before it came down.

There were seven folks here working. Bobby, Jody, David, Paul, the gigantic man whose caliper was at least 37" to grind the stump and some girl with him with no hair. Apparently she suffers from a nervous condition which causes her to lose her hair. Anyway, they all worked like champs, however by nightfall there was still much to be done. This is Jody wielding the chain saw.

Except we woke to steady rain Thursday morning.

Everything was messy before with the rain adding another dimension to the mess. The night before the stump grinder guy had to leave his vehicle in the driveway because he had a flat tire. Looks pretty pathetic in this picture doesn't it?

Around 10 they began arriving as the rainfall slowed down.

They put the tarp over the window to keep any chips from the grinder from hitting it. Take a closer look at the size of the pieces.

While this was all going on I was doing my best to sign prints, preparing them for tomorrow's show in Baldwin Park, however, you know me, I had to keep checking things out. In fact, although I didn't do much of any work related to it, I was worn out last night just from all the activity!

By around 4:30 the job was done. All in all they spent at least 12 hours here. As such, while talking to Bruce we decided that Jody had underbid the work. I'm not sure what Jody expected when Bruce called but I'm pretty sure it wasn't that we wanted to pay him more for the job. Coming by this morning for another check he expressed sincere gratitude. We're very grateful to him and his crew for doing a wonderful job on an extremely difficult project! Watching those people work in the rain, with vehicles that won't start, most people would realize how easy their life is in comparison. Sure, I didn't' want to spend the money, but at least we have it, whereas I imagine if any one of the crew had to spend several thousand dollars unexpectedly they'd be hard pressed. We definitely count our blessings around here.

I took this photo earlier this morning to show you what I've done with the space. 

Not too bad, at least temporarily. 

It's been quite a week, beginning with my flooded garage last Friday. I never got around to mentioning that did I? Stemmed from a kaput sink disposal which had to be replaced on Friday afternoon. New cable installed outside on Saturday, then all the fun stuff, then on Monday they cut the power for most of the morning, then the tree fall on Tuesday. Let's hope things return to normal next week, but not before I have an awesome show at Baldwin Park tomorrow. Wish me luck!