52 Photos Project: Chopped

A couple years ago we were putting up a greenhouse & we decided the best place to catch winter sun but semi-shade in summer, be sheltered from storms but not in danger from any large falling trees & have access to plumbing & potential electric hook-up was just exactly where there was already a tree.

Let me be clear, we would not have killed a healthy tree (more on this in a future rant), but this tree was on its way out.  It had been struck by lightning & left off balance & a bit loose-in-the-roots (this actually took years to notice, but in the end even I could rock the tree bumping it with the riding mower, the horses scratching their rumps made it look like a major wind was whipping through the branches).  Then during hurricanes Charley-Frances-Jeanne the wind really did tilt it further.  So we had been carving pieces off as they began to interfere with the fence, the side of the house, the path between the fence & the side of the house for a while & the greenhouse was just the push we need to take it down.

The removal was more or less a one-man job.  Even pulling the stump was only a 1 & 1/2 man + truck with chains job.  Once that stump was out of the ground, it was a different story.  It ripped the chain off the chainsaw more than once & in the end we just sort of rolled it a few feet to the north, replaced the pasture fence we had taken down to take down the tree & now on sunny mornings the birds gather on the old stump, pecking at the varieties of bird seed I toss over it every few days.  It is quite a bit smaller these days, having collapsed in the center but still a bear to move around.

Finally for this week at 52 Photos Project, I give you Chopped.