Dear Family and Friends,

Finally! A post with pictures! I am SOOOO excited!

If you think we haven’t done anything of note these past weeks, you would only be half right. As I wrote in my last post, I have been fighting a bug that just won’t quit. Well, I think it gave up this past weekend, but it has been a tiring time of coughing and sneezing and just being tired.

Nonetheless, we have been busy and I have been trying to keep up with everyone else.

Thomas comes from a very hands-on family. They are all amazingly talented, have great practical skills and are much stronger and more active than I am. That is great! Except that I do fight with not having a complex for being so useless at times.

Cue the violins and sad trombones, people.

OK. Now it’s time for me to cut it out. I have talents! I really do! And my best talent is being willing to get involved and learn new things quickly and rather painlessly. This year I have been learning how to handle wood in all stages of life. Planting, tending, removing, splitting and stacking and burning. (OK, I had that burning part down a long time ago, but I didn’t want the pyromaniacal side of me to show.)

Looking back

These past two weeks have shown us just what we got ourselves into when we bought this house.

Remember this picture? (I mean, it is still the header of this blog, but someday it will change.) This is how everyone saw our house. It hasn’t been visible in 20 years. Our neighbors confessed that they had never seen the exterior of the house and the hedge was an “impenetrable wall” keeping them out.

Over the months we have been itching to clear it away. Although we did some basic starting work and worked on the jungle inside the hedge, we needed to wait until the first of October because of the birds (and it IS German law). So when it hit, we were ready with saws revved and ready to go, the safety gear all prepped and set out and hopefully enough room for the wood to dry for the next two years into firewood.

The reason I have always had such an odd angle of our house for our stories is that we have never been able to get the house in frame.

Our first target was the largest part of the hedge and a real little monster. It was also a beast we did not want to tackle on our own. First of all, it was going to be a lot of work. Secondly, I lack the serious experience that is strongly suggested when attempting these projects. Finally, I think Thomas’ dad is getting bored in his retirement and needs a bit of action to keep him up and running (if we let them, I think they would attack the hedge on their own and do it “their way” just to help). We had this all mapped out. I made sure to have enough food and snacks on hand.

Then it rained. Then Thomas’ dad and spotter got sick. On the 26^th of October it was finally time. A couple days before I got hit with a major bug attack, but I was determined to see this one through. I wasn’t the main figure, anyway. Thomas’ dad has been cutting trees into firewood for as long as I have been alive, so he was the best person to be Thomas’ spot. Thomas has the experience and training with a chainsaw I just do not have and this was HIS tree (notice the past tense, I’m getting ahead of myself).

I figured that the best thing for me to do when it was time was to keep clearly out of range so that Thomas could concentrate on the tree and keeping himself safe and not worry about me being underfoot. That is how I ended up being the lookout (on the road) and photographer.

All pictures are taken with a healthy zoom and are just a selection of the 1 GB I wasted spent on telling the story of our spruce tree’s last hours.

Word for the day: Timber = Baum fällt.

Literally translated from German: Tree falling.
This PNW-girl still likes “Timber” better.

A spruce tree was blocking most of it and taking up at least 16 square meters of space in our yard. It was stealing our light, our view and making everything feel small and cramped.

We love nature and it is hard to accept that a tree that size needs to go. But it was in the wrong space for us, the house and in the long run, itself. It had outgrown its location and its roots were going to run out of space soon.

An important side-note before I continue:

This is a DIY experience. However, Thomas has taken the training needed to fell trees including properly and safely using a chainsaw and the art of rigging trees to fall in a pre-determined area. He was wearing safety gear at all times including a climbing harness when in the tree. When cutting on the ground, he was also wearing a logging mask with ear and eye protection, as well as the helmet (he should have been wearing his saw-resistant pants as well (they were prepped to go), but instead is wearing heavy-duty construction gear including steel cap safety shoes and cut-resistant gloves.

When cutting down trees this size and larger, there is always a definite amount of risk involved. Trained and very experienced people every year are seriously injured in logging accidents. There is no shame in asking for help with this project. If in doubt, ask for aid. If you are not trained in using a chainsaw in this manner, get some experience with a pro beforehand. Please do not overestimate your abilities.

OK. I feel better now. Just had to get that off my chest.

Back to our regular programming

Cutting down a tree is never a one-man job. We had three active positions to fill: Thomas as the one felling the tree, a spotter (his Dad) responsible for helping rig the tree and watching its movements from a distance, and a lookout (me) to watch for people and animals who could enter the “safety area” and warn them off. I was stationed safely across the road well out of the tree’s fell radius with a view down the street in either direction.

As Thomas was getting ready, his parents decided to use their time to just take down another couple meters of hedge along our driveway. Thanks to them, we now have a clear path all the way to the carport that is now “hedgeless”.

Getting started

Thomas set up a ladder and headed into the tree. We had removed the lower branches a couple weeks before when Thomas’ dad was sick. Thomas basically took down all the branches up to head-level to give him room to move around down there.

They were so closely grown together, that it was quite the fight getting them out. My job was pulling them out and cutting them down. The larger ones were sawn down and set aside to be cut down for firewood someday.

Can you see that spot of green? That is the gate to the back yard! No, it was not there a month ago! Isn’t it exciting? No? Well you just wait until you see those pictures! But wait! I’m getting ahead of / behind myself.

Back on topic, Kristin! Thank you, very much.

Thomas climbed into the tree to cap the top of it.

My. Doesn’t that seem simple and quick. Not exactly descriptive of the 30 minute fight to the top. Hmmmm. How can I put this into words?

Thomas carefully climbed the tree, cutting his way through branches, forcing his way through the tangle of 10,000 Christmas tree lights securely yet randomly fastened to its boughs. His goal was the top of the tree for a simple cut to cap it below the height of the telephone line.

Much better.

Finally, he reached a solid perch for the next step.

And then…. Reality struck.

Instead of one tree top, there were four. At some point in time, someone had capped the tree. Instead of inhibiting its growth, however, it had just created more tops to add to the fun.

The tree tops were fastened to guy lines and pulled safely down from below directly onto our driveway. Perfect 10!

Thomas set to work with a hand saw carefully cutting down one treetop at a time. Close quarters, a tentative perch. I’m not sure Thomas noticed, but I sure was nervous. Notice the safety gear. He was being as safe as he could.

By then it was time for lunch.

I went in to prepare a quick meal while Thomas took a moment to enjoy the view after a hard morning’s work. I never did see that view. I have serious respect for trees—I’ll let Thomas climb them for me.

By this time, I was coughing a bit more than Thomas’ mom liked, so she strongly encouraged me to “lie down for ½ hour. You don’t have to sleep. Just rest your eyes.”

Like every stubborn teenager worldwide, I answered,

“Look! Your son is climbing up the tree!”

And made a dash for the door as she turned to look away. Moms are so predictable.

(In the interest of full disclosure—I DID go in and “rest my eyes” for ½ hour after this was over. I am not sure how long that ½ hour was, but I woke to hear Thomas say, “she’s sound asleep on the couch.” Mom’s do know best… sometimes.)

That afternoon things got serious.

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Thomas DID climb the tree. He was rigging up the tree for the final fall. I took some “last minute photos” as he climbed back down and his dad got the ropes in place. Then Thomas came out with the safety gear on and the chainsaw in hand.

Note: I am translating the German terminology, if I get the English wrong, feel free to correct me if you know the lingo.

He cut a felling-notch cut first and then had to narrow the tree because the chainsaw was too small for the diameter of the tree. He then made the plunge cut creating the hinge and placed the wedges. Notice, none of the cuts touch one another. If you want a post on how to cut down a tree, I will write one in more detail. Suffice it to say, it is not just cutting a straight line through the base of the tree and calling “Timber”.

I called Timber!

At this point, the tree shivered. It was pretty amazing to see. Thomas’ Dad called out, Thomas hit the wedge one last time and carefully and quickly left the safety radius. If it kicked back, that was NOT the place to be standing. Notice please, there is no one in this shot. We are all safe distances away.

Thomas had taken off a lot of the limbs on the opposite side to make the tree heavier in the direction he wanted it to fall and they had tensioned the rigging-lines appropriately. And the tree accommodated.

It fell perfectly in place. Not even the little fencing or the rhododendron was damaged. The tree was down. Thomas’ parents went to work cutting that tree up into manageable pieces. When I came out after “resting my eyes”, the tree had been reduced to 3 piles of trimmed down branches (the trailer was full of the cedar hedge branches), a 2 stacks of cut and split fire wood, a stack of branches to be cut down and a wheelbarrow of “extra wood pieces that needed a home to dry in. The tree was gone.

All that was left was this view from our family room the next day:

Now THAT is what I want my yard to be filled with: Family, nature, sun and peace.