Saying goodbye to a member of our family...

On June 14 , 2010 we said goodbye to our dear friend and loving companion, our oak tree. Now this might seem like an overly sentimental and sappy post but one has to understand that our oak tree was the reason for buying our house. It was so beautiful and majestic. It provided wonderful shade as it towered over our home and added much privacy to our lot. We loved sitting out in the front yard under our tree on a hot summer day watching the kids play. I also loved the view it provided out the front window, no neighbors, no street, just my tree.
Two years ago I noticed one of the major limbs had died, then last year another limb never came back in the spring. I called the arborist and tree conservationists that we have always used to take care of our tree to come inspect it and cut the limbs down. After their initial inspection, the arborist found some disease in the roots but was hopeful we could cure it. For further direction they sent out the head conservationist from the company followed by a master arborist from UC Davis who ultimately broke the news to us that our tree was dying. It had a major root disease, one of the worst cases he had seen. He said with the roots rotting away it could stand another 15 years or it could fall tomorrow, there was no way to know for sure. We decided it was not worth the risk to our family if the tree were to fall with us out there so we decided it was time to say goodbye.
With just a few days before we had to say goodbye, I sat outside one beautiful morning, under my tree, and cried as I wondered how I was going to say goodbye and it came to me...lets make lemonade out of these lemons; lets build a tree house on top of the trunk! I called Brian and to my surprise, he thought it was a great idea.
Brian took the day off to oversee the tree removal and we sat outside all day with Ty and watch our beautiful tree come down. My dear friend Gail came by several times to check on me and told me not to be sad, that our tree was over a hundred years old, it lived a long life and died having been truly cherished.

The Before Pictures:

Our driveway

The view from the end of the driveway

Street view

The Removal:

Thank goodness they cut down trees better than they spell!

Way up in the tree

Ty observing the destruction

The mess only half way through

Mom and Ty

The After Pictures:

HELLO...there's a house there, who knew?

Street view

Our driveway now