Because we love excitement around here.

These are not my trees. They belong to the county. They county's property butts right up to mine. They removed these trees at our request because the pine tree was a. leaning towards our house and b. tearing up our driveway.

The Bradford Pear was a favorite tree for climbing. Most days, there would be at least 5 kids up in the tree. They even named all the branches. But it had to go because it would have been destroyed when the pine tree came down.

The pear came down fairly easy. The county folks knocked down my cable wire and tore up the corner of my siding. (I have that on my list of things to complain about.)

Then the pine removal began.

That's an 85 foot bucket truck. It wasn't tall enough. Notice the lean. This is the best angle to see just how non-straight the tree was.

That tree was a house killer. The boys had to sleep downstairs during heavy storms.
The roots grew under my driveway and pushed up the concrete...and grew into my sewage line. Can you tell that I have no love lost for the giant pine?

The view from across the street. This is after most of the limbs were removed. We left the house early and missed the initial action. This is what we found around 10 am. That's my driveway where the bucket truck is. There were another dozen county vehicles in the road. Wood chippers, backhoe, dump truck, fuel truck, and then various pickup trucks. They pretty much blocked the entire road.

While two guys from the power company cut down the big pine tree, another 10 county guys watched them. The work started at 7:30 am and they didn't finish up until after 4 pm.
And look what they left me with. I had no idea that they could possibly tear up my driveway more than it had been... I underestimated them. The funniest part was, they used leaf blowers to clean the debris off the driveway. I told them that that was an exercise in futility. (click on the pic to make it bigger. The expression of confusion on Andrew's face is hilarious. Ignore the ugly trailer. It's there temporarily.) Of course, the first thing I complained about was the oil stain. That set ZD off. "Well that's just the last straw....An oil stain. Now the driveway is completely ruined."

Here's another shot. For reference, those are ZD's size 13.5 feet. Notice the huge chunks of concrete sticking up. Lovely, huh?

And to add insult to injury, they left the two giant stumps. 50 year old pine trees leave a very big stump. I swear, my kids do own shoes. They just don't like to wear them.

ZooDad has already drafted his next letter.

And that's not all. Next post.....Water damage in the Zoo.