Losing a Friend

Yesterday we lost a friend, a tree that has been in our yard since before we moved into our house in 2003. We don't know exactly when it was planted but a good guess is probably 25 years ago.  It was a cottonwood which are considered "trash trees", but it provided us with a lot of good shade.  The children also enjoyed using it for their hammocks and a little climbing.

This picture was taken almost exactly 10 years ago, shortly after we got home from Germany.  You can see the cottonwood to the left of the house, the tallest tree in the picture.  I was told it was probably about 15 years old at that point.  Cottonwood trees grow fast.

I should have taken a picture of the same view before they cut down the tree but I didn't.  Here's a picture of our house today, without the tree:

The house looks quite different because of that huge walnut tree which we planted ten years ago this fall.  The locust tree on the right is also much bigger.  Perhaps you can also see that we have gotten a new door and new shutters that are different colors from the dark green we used to have.

I decided to take out the cottonwood when I called a tree trimming company that I have used before and the man told me that the cottonwood was too close to the house and the sooner we took it out, the better.  Also, it was crowding the maple tree which is in the foreground of the picture below.  The cottonwood is in back of the maple and you can see that it's pretty close to the house.

So yesterday, they brought in their bucket truck and took it out.  They had to drive it on the neighbor's lawn to get close enough.  That caused me some stress but the neighbors didn't mind because they really didn't like the cottonwood.  It was constantly shedding little branches and leaves on their lawn and the roots got in their sprinkler box and messed that up.  They also worried about the tree falling down on their house due to the shallow roots, although I was not concerned about that.  I should have asked the man who cut it down, how tall our tree was, but I forgot to.

The neighbor got some plywood to try to protect his lawn but it didn't really need it.

It was interesting to watch the process they used.  First, they cut off as many branches as they could reach easily. Then, they had to use a rope around the bigger branch in the background to lower it carefully to the ground.

To avoid damaging the house or fence, they cut the tree off in small pieces and then dropped them to the ground.

At the very end, they had to cut small slices to make the pieces manageable.  The tree rings are not very obvious so we can't count the rings to see how old it is.

Here's our house without the cottonwood.  We're really missing the shade that it gave us.  The weather has been really hot and I'm sure our air conditioner is having to work much harder now that it's in the full sun.  Plus the house is getting more sun which makes it hotter.  But I'm hoping the maple will pick up the slack and grow more now that it doesn't have to compete with the cottonwood.  And maybe we can find a tree to plant in its place that won't get too big.