Our across-the-street neighbor, Paul, has (now, had) two 75- to 80-foot tall oak trees in the front yard. There were a lot of galls on the trees, and he didn’t like all the wasps that were hanging around his yard. Galls form when gall wasps lay their eggs on the branches of the tree. The galls girdle the branch and are basically the tree’s reaction to the presence of insects. Here’s a picture of what the galls look like.

Paul decided to cut down both trees. He told us that he and his son were planning to take the first tree down last week. He said they’ve rented equipment and taken down trees in the past, and would do it again. After our conversation with Paul, Ted and I went home, figuratively scratching our heads. That was a mighty big tree to fell unless you’re a professional, so we hoped Paul knew what he was doing. He did. He called a professional tree service to do the job instead.

It took the four-man professional crew four days to do the work. On Day One, they roped one guy and sent him up the tree to cut off the limbs. Before cutting, each limb was roped to the other oak tree so it could be eased down, rather than dropped. The limbs were huge!! I’m not sure what they’ll rope the limbs of the second tree to when Paul takes that one down later this summer. The cutter guy and his chainsaw worked upward until only a few smaller limbs were left at the top. That took all day.

On Day Two, the guys took down the tree trunk in large chunks, beginning at the top. After felling the final piece of the trunk, the second day’s work ended. Ted and I were not at home to watch the process, but that evening, we met our next-door neighbors as they were leaving the restaurant we were entering. The first thing they said to us was, “Hi, neighbors!” The second thing was, “Did your house shake when that tree trunk came down?” Because we weren’t home when it happened, they described it to us. They said the last portion of that huge, heavy trunk fell so hard, it was like an earthquake, and shook all the walls and floors in their house!

The tall tree in the photo below is the other one Paul is going to remove. It’s smaller than the now missing tree. Look at the size of those trunk pieces! The stump doesn’t show in my photo, but it was more than three feet in diameter. And Paul thought he and his son could handle that??!! It’s a good thing they opted out of the do-it-yourself method.

On the next day, Day Three, the crew came back with a claw, a piece of heavy equipment with jaws, to pick up the chunks and put them into a dump truck.

Here’s a closer look at the pieces of the tree trunk. For scale, there’s a tree crew member cleaning up debris at the garage door.

On Day Four, a guy came with a stump grinder. It took him between two and three hours to grind the huge stump. Now, this is all that’s left of the over 40-year-old, tall, oak tree.