Dead Pines Down

 With the recent storms, we lost one pine on Wednesday (04/08) afternoon. Mom and I had gone to Kroger's for our weekly groceries and we also stopped for lunch. As I pulled  into our driveway, this is what we saw ...

 This tree is one of the Musser Scotch Pines I planted many years ago. It had been dead for some time and finally, with the explosive wind, it fell. I asked Bob whether he could stop by over the weekend and help me chop it up so that I could mow there. Actually, the tree had broken into a couple of large sections. I was able to cut and remove the top section (closest to the camera) by myself. The thicker lower part and the trunk was beyond my doing with a hand saw.

 So today, after we went out for breakfast and played a game of Rummy with Mom, Bob fired up his chain saw and got to work just after 10 am..

 It was a beautiful spring day, sunny and about 40° as we began. The ground was certainly still wet so I told Bob I wouldn't haul the heavy logs away in my wheelbarrow. I didn't want to make a rut in the lawn.

 Though this tree is close to 28 years old, it really wasn't that large. This line of pines was to be my first line of defense against the west winds but the line is mostly gone now. I suppose Ohio's climate - and various insects - aren't kind to pines. Indigenous trees would have been a better choice.

 It didn't take Bob long to remove the limbs from this tree and soon enough he was cutting the stump even with the ground.

 He can really shave the stump awfully close to the soil. I'll be able to mow right over the top of what's left.

 One other pine had fallen in the back row and Bob and I pulled it down out of another pine that it was leaning  against. It soon got reduced to logs and sawdust.
 Then we moved to a pine in front of the former henhouse. It wasn't quite dead but it was pretty sick. It was also a problem with mowing so I asked if he could take it down before he left. Because it's beside the woodpile, we were able to move the logs immediately into storage.

 Bob just felled the entire tree and then it presented an easier working height to remove the limbs.

 With Pinehaven as backdrop, this tree was cut quickly. I carried the limbs off to a compost area and we moved the logs to our pile.
 Each year, Pinehaven becomes less pines. I thought I'd have a Michigan landscape in my old age, but it is not to be.