Photos: Storm Clean-Up

Soon I will post the photos from the blizzard, but that will require me to sort through them all. For now, I'll work backward...starting with the clean-up.

This is how our house looked last Spring.

Pretty, serene, and sheltered by all of the mature trees.  Unfortunately, we lost a lot of trees in the storm, as you can see when you scroll down.

(It may be easier to see if you click on the photos to make them bigger and scroll through them.)

This gives you an idea of how big the tree in the center island was.  It survived the storm, but we opted to get rid of it as a precaution.

The tree just to the right (not seen in this photo) fell onto the two trees on the left, and took them down.  The domino effect resulted in our driveway being completely blocked.

This is how it looked earlier this week, three weeks after the storm, and before the tree crew arrived to clean up all of the tree debris.

We lost 1 tree to the left of the driveway along with the 3 to the right.

As a precaution, we decided to get rid of the giant trees to the left and right of the house while the crew was already here.

This is the how big the monster tree's root ball was!

Here is how it looked yesterday afternoon, after the crew left. I don't really miss the trees in front being gone, as it just opens up the beautiful view looking toward the ocean.  What I do miss is the huge tree in the center of the driveway.  It offered shade, privacy, and a place to hang our white rocking chair swing.

Here are the before storm and after storm/clean-up comparisons:

June 2012

March 2013: Bare and exposed!

The big tree to the right of the house couldn't be taken down yesterday because the crane wasn't available.  They'll be back in two weeks to get rid of that.

In addition to taking the tree down, they'll be back to get rid of this log pile and the remaining tree stumps.

 

Dad, you'll remember when you and Dave trimmed all the lower branches from the tree beside the fence.  As you can see below, that tree is now completely gone.

Looking toward the barn - no more tree next to the white fence

The crew was very efficient and got through the work in about 5 hours.

This was the monster tree, the biggest of the four that fell, and the one that took our our power line from the street along with our cable.  The tree looked it had four trunks. This picture doesn't do it justice.  It was MASSIVE.

Liam really enjoyed watching the Bobcat pick up the logs and feed them into the shredder.

 You can see Dave and the kids watching the work from across the street, while they waited for Amanda's bus.

Here is the pile of wood chips left behind by the crew, along with other piles of branches.  Dave is taking advantage of a warm, sunny day today and trying to burn as much as he can.