A Prodigious Feat

A couple of days ago, I had four more spruce trees cut down (2 living and 2 dead -- and that will be $2000 plus tax). The tree service company got to them two weeks earlier than expected.

For the past two days, I've been working at getting the debris out of the yard. Today, I finished cutting up and rolling into the woods the largest log (@18" in diameter and perhaps 20' long), which was blocking getting the lawn tractor into the side yard, where two of the others are located.

I should have taken a picture before I started cutting up the big guy, as a memento of what a prodigious feat that was. Prodigious feat though it was, it might easily have been worse, as the log was lying on a slope.

One of the dead trees might well have taken out the power line when it fell, so it had to go. Due to its lean, the other dead tree would almost certainly have hit the house when it fell.

The two live trees might also have hit the house had they fallen (the big one was less than 10' away, the other simply that tall). It turns out that the live trees weren't diseased, but I'm glad they are down. A few years ago, a buddy of the farther one just fell over one day -- it's base was riddled with fungus mycelium.

It's too bad that I don't know anyone who could have used the wood of the big spruce. It was such a nice length of perfectly straight wood.

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The Emerald Ash Borer is killing ash trees all across the US. Naturally, a lot of the trees on my property are ash -- and the woods are full of dead fallen trees.

Last year, I had some ash trees along the property line dropped. A couple of them were close to 24" diameter. This spring, a couple of large (and very dead) ash on a neighboring rental property fell over, fortunately not hitting the building. Recently, the owner had a crew in to clean up the fallen trees (they were at it for at least a week). The crew cut up and hauled away not only the recently fallen trees, but also some of the ones I had had cut down. Now, I didn't mind that too much -- less work for me -- BUT, they also carted off the wood I had already cut and split and which was clearly on my property.

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A groundhog has made a way into the garden.  So, come spring, I'll have to figure out a way to groundhog-proof the fence.  That will be fun, I'm sure.  So far, the only idea I have is to dig out the soil all around the perimeter so I can staple a width of hardware cloth (i..e wire mesh) to the garden's wooden skirting, having the mesh projecting below ground level.  Then fill it back in, of course.

Any ideas will be appreciated.

I *hate* animals.