Farewell Aspens

These aspen trees have been in our front yard for all 17 years we have lived in this house.  We have literally seen them grow up from skinny little saplings to big giants.  However, these last few years have seen a few branches here and there start to die.  We brought out some tree experts and had them take a look to help us understand what the future looks like for the trees.  They basically said that the tree on the left was about half dead with the tree on the right fairing a bit better.  However, due to their age they would likely both be completely dead within the next one to two years, so we made the decision to have them taken down now before they could come crashing down on a house or our neighbor's car "Billiam".

The tree guys came back a few days later and hauled themselves up the trees to start cutting them down from the top.  We weren't quite that excited that they started with the chainsaws at 7 am but it was good to get them handled.  I think we had to pay roughly $800 dollars to have them removed with Tara asking several times why I couldn't just do it myself and save the money?  I think one look at the picture above should help everyone understand how bad of an idea that would have been.

A few hours later, this was all that remained.  I am not sure how these guys can do this every day, all day.  My back was crying just watching it all go down.

Finally, this is the last picture I have of what was left of our big aspens.  They cut off two big slabs for Gavin to keep and turn into planter pot pedestals.  Shortly after this, they used an enormous grinder to take out the remnants of the stumps down in the ground.  The wood chips were all picked up and they were out by lunch time.  Our yard looked so barren!