65 days till Christmas

Early start getting everything cleared away for the tree felling today. During the call yesterday from one of the Tschugg brothers who own the garden contractors, he mentioned he wouldn't be coming but would be sending a very good man. And indeed he was - punctual, friendly, extremely safety aware and did an excellent, quick job, doing everything exactly as I wanted.

He started on the four trees Angie also wanted removed and luckily at that point Mt Tschugg dropped by and confirmed my fears that removing one or two of the good leaning trees would place the remaining trees at a much higher risk of blowing over. Added to this he could see evidence that the trees are beginning to suffer health problems in the crowns and confirmed they should all come down. He agreed to talk it through on the phone with Angie at work - my way of getting out of gthe firing line when she got home - last night her parting words on going to bed were "if all the trees are down tomorrow night when I get home there will be trouble"

Wasn't much I could do except stay out of the way. Had to keep the dogs locked indoors which they didn't appreciate especially as we hadn't done a morning walk. Did take a series of elapsed photos and made a short film which is on Flickr.

 I had asked that the stumps were left at about 4m high just in case I ever get around to building the grandchildren a tree house or at least select a few to use as hammock supports next year. If they aren't needed I can cut them down myself as they are below power cable height. Also asked that the logs were left as long as possible and simply everything dropped to the ground for me to clear in due course. Most of it will of course become firewood and probably the smaller stuff farmer Franz might want to chip for his central heating.

Well I survived but did have my moments as the last tree and the one closest to the power lines (2-3m) was taken down. I forgot to ask how tall the trees were but I guess around 25m. I don't quite know how I will manage to build a tree house at 4m - thats 3.75m above my "feel safe" height.

The extra photo shows what will be keeping me warm for the next few weeks, long before it gets fed to the sitting room fire.

Sorry no Tractór Tuesday possible today!

Thanks Team Tschugg for an excellent job and it was great to meet someone who I didn't know before, a local farmer who does some work for the contractors vwhen time allows.