06 November 2014

Ash again...

A sad day today as we watched three tree surgeons take down the big ash tree at the rear of the house. It was very close to the property and with the advance of the Emerald Ash Borer through Ontario, it seemed sensible to anticipate the inevitable and remove the whole tree rather than just the branches which were overhanging the house.



I didn't envy the three arborists their job, but they were very methodical about it, with the lower limbs going first, and then the upper ones.


Until all that was left was the central trunk to come down.


There is an impressive amount of burnable wood left for Mike to cut into smaller lengths for the fire.


I counted the rings in the lower part of the trunk and I think the tree was 64 years old. Our house was built in the early 1970s, so the tree was already 20 years old then. 


It's amazing how much lighter it is in the house with the tree down, even with no leaves on it!

2 comments:

Diana Studer said...

catching up. We left 2 30 year old ash trees in our Porterville garden - where we were deeply grateful for their kind shade.
In our new False Bay garden, we've had to remove some overgrown aliens. Still need to remove Australian bottlebrush, but we've begun the fun bit of choosing NEW trees.
I've been so long out of touch - can I ask - did your mother come from England?

Amanda said...

Hi Diana - good to hear from you! Yes, I will miss the shade of this tree in the summer. And yes, my mother was English. As am I! But now Canadian, too. ;-)