Let's just say, getting a tree of this magnitude cut down is expensive (much more expensive that we expected), but after watching the teams over THREE days, we definitely know why.
We had called around the area and we received estimates from several different companies, but we decided to go with Arbor Magic. When one of their arborists was out, he was truly sorry to have to tell us it was time to cut down the tree (which we appreciated over the other companies with nothing but money on their minds). In addition, the teams the showed up to cut down the tree each day were very efficient and they did an excellent job of keeping things tidy (you know how important that was to Kristina). In addition, they didn't take out any trees other than the GIANT Cottonwood Tree. We would highly recommend these guys and we will definitely use them in the future.
The first team showed up on Monday afternoon (we weren't expecting them until Tuesday, but finished another job early and wanted to do some prep work on our tree) and immediately got busy. Here's a shot of Josh climbing up the nearby Maple Tree to get to the Cottonwood Tree; we were amazed at how we just
quickly he scampered up that skinnier Maple Tree.
Here he is on the Cottonwood, getting down to business.
A zoomed out shot, you can see Josh in the tree, if you look closely.
And the tree starts coming down... As you can see, there are several people here working on taking this tree down. There are tons of harnesses everywhere and everyone was working well as a team to get this done as efficiently as possible with minimal damage to the yard and surround trees (that was important to Jared).
The Cottonwood is starting to look naked at the top...
Team below trying to control where the limbs fall.
This reminds us of cartoons when we were kids; you always saw the wedges being cut out of the trees just before you heard "TIMBER!".
This is what is looked like at the end of Tuesday, you can tell they didn't quite get it all down, so they will have to show up tomorrow. Before they could even start this job, they had to buy a special chainsaw, and we're sure it was put to good use.
This is what the backyard looks like now. When they came back on Wednesday, they brought along a newly purchased "mechanical come along" to finish the job. Something that they didn't expect, but put to good use and they will use for future jobs. See that Indy is checking for squirrels. :)
From these photos, you can see that the tree was indeed rotting. It might have lasted another year or two, no one knows for sure. It is nice to know that we did the right thing.
Now we just have to wait for these GIANT rounds to be picked up by another company. Arbor Magic chipped and took away as much as they could, but these rounds are too large for them and their chipper, so another company will be out on Monday or Tuesday to take the rest.
Stay tuned...
