TimberBear Removes our 80-foot Swamp-Maple

The ancient 80-foot Swamp-Maple in our front yard in Maine finally got sick and tired of standing upright. This year, it began shedding branches and trunks at an alarming rate. Our local pal Bill warned us in the winter that a larger branch had fallen, and he cleaned it up for us. But nature wasn’t finished. When we arrived in July, we saw the story was becoming much more complex.

Timber-Bear, our long-term arborist, and his wife, Kat spent three full days dismantling the rotten and hazardously splitting and groaning tree.

Because three of the multiple trunks were cabled together at 30-feet up by the previous owner (see image below), there was no hope of safely felling those 3 tree trunks one at a time. Instead, he had to disassemble it from the top down.

---

Embarrassingly, for three days, Mom, Kristin, George, Frankie and I set up comfortable lawn chairs and watched every move with coffee or soft drinks in hand. We spoke of the cost of this project as being like “high-priced concert tickets” … a once in a lifetime experience. (Or, in our case, 3-in-a-lifetime experiences as we watched for the duration.)

The huge stump (there were six tree trunks growing from it) is still a problem. Timber-Bear talks about getting an associate with bigger equipment to finish the job. (Stay tuned!)

Yikes, property ownership is expensive.

LoveYa, Dad

…

Here’s a gallery of images that shows the full story.