Trees be gone

Here are a few photos of the aftermath of our tree removal. We had three trees taken out: a big apple that had a rotten trunk and fell down a couple of weeks ago, a smaller apple tree whose days were numbered, and a small years-dead pear. The garden contractors took away the smaller branches and cut up the larger pieces for me to burn in the wood stove.

The new view westward toward the back gate and the vineyards beyond. On the right is one of the two remaining, healthy, apple trees.

I don't miss these trees at all. Some of the apples were good, but there were way too many of them. I had to pick them up several times each summer before I could cut the grass. The did go into the compost, and that was good, but it was a lot of work.

The view looking eastward toward the house. The blue spruce is the shortest of the three fir trees in the photo.

The big apple tree shaded part of the vegetable garden in the spring and fall. Now, with it gone, there will be a lot more light coming through. And the views that have opened up are pretty cool. I figure that if these trees were planted around the time the house was built, they're probably about fifty years old. I read that fifty is the low end of the normal lifespan for a healthy, well-maintained apple tree. So these were not premature deaths.

What's left of the big apple. Doesn't look like much, does it?

There's a fourth tree that will be coming out in a couple of months. It's a tall blue spruce (we think) that is also dying. There are no needles on the lower third of its branches and many fewer than normal on the upper branches. This has been going on for a few years. The tree is too close to the house and is crowding two other trees. It needs to go. In the second photo, you can see the top of the doomed tree between the two tall pointy fir trees (we're keeping those). The spruce is on the left, and the linden is on the right. The linden will have more room to breathe.