Today, we had a tree removed from our front yard. Eric enjoyed watching all of the activity. We watched out in the back yard while they trimmed the trees in the back. Eric giggled every time he saw a branch fall. We watched from under our covered deck, so we did not worry about any branches falling on us. This also meant that we could not see the man up in the tree who was doing all of the cutting, but we certainly could see the branches falling. Apparently, he could hear us, though. After a few branches and the subsequent laughing and giggling, we heard the man call down “This is the first time I heard anyone laugh at this!” I think the worker was as entertained by Eric, as Eric was entertained by him.
We went back inside for a while…until they started trimming in the front yard. This would be the main event! The medium size tree in our front yard was mostly dead, so we decided to have it removed before mother nature could make other dangerous plans for it. Eric, Mommy, and I watched as they cut many of the larger branches from the tree. They used a crane, parked in our driveway, to lift the branches out to the street, where they ran them through a large wood chipper. Eric was fascinated by all of the machinery! Finally, the tree was cut loose at its base. The workers had climbed into the tree and secured cables and straps to a couple of the higher limbs. The tree did not fall over when it was cut. It simply swung to the side a bit. The crane lifted it high in the air over the other trees to set it down in the street for further reduction with the chain saws and wood chipper. As the tree floated up and over the other trees, Eric asked Mommy, “why is it flying?” This was truly an entertaining day for Eric. ( I think that I enjoyed it nearly as much!)
