As if the flat tire wasn't enough bad luck for the time being, I came home Wed night to find a humongous oak tree lying across my driveway! The first thought that went through my head was, "Too bad it didn't fall onto the house." Luckily, it did NOT fall on the house because it certainly would not have "totaled" the house which was my initial thought, but we'd be battling with insurance and contractors just to get it sell-able, and we wanted to put in on the market this weekend.
We had a rainstorm Mon-Wed and got somewhere near a half foot of rain. The root ball had eroded and the tree came toppling over. Shirley's car was in the garage at the time so she was now stuck on the other side unable to get down the driveway. Luckily I had come home late from work that day and ended up downstream of the tree and therefore, able to still get off the property. I first thought I'd call a "tree guy" but then decided it might be something I could handle on my own, or with a little help from my friends.
It always pays to have a buddy with chainsaw. I went and borrowed it right away and decided to tackle the job the next day after work. He came by to help out but we ultimately hit a wall with a dull chain and ended our night's work with the driveway still blocked. Next day, new chain, the thing cut like butter. It's still a complicated situation: depending on how the segment you are cutting is supported, it will either tend to pinch the saw on the top or on the bottom. And then you have to watch out when branches are loaded; they can spring back in your face and then you may sever your head. We ended the night by rolling the main pieces into the woods and freeing up the driveway. Success!
Now I had to figure out a way to get the wood off the property and make it look to potential buyers that there isn't a significant chance of a 10,000 pound tree crushing them. This guy at work, Jim, had mentioned that if I ever have a tree go down in the woods, to give him a call. He's looking for firewood. I emailed him the photos and he was ready to come get the wood. He showed up on Saturday and was a bit awestruck at the sheer size of this tree. Before coming up, he suggested that he might just come up with his SUV and fill that, and, if required, make another run up with the trailer. I hinted that we'd fill that SUV up in 10 minutes; fortunately he heeded my word and brought a 5000 lbs. capacity trailer.
It was a hard day's work but we were able to roll all of the big logs out of the woods and onto the trailer. They weighed about 400 pounds each and that trailer was dragging when he finally hauled it away. There's still a pile of smaller pieces left and he's going to come by tomorrow and haul the rest away. I carried all of the brush out into the woods and the yard is looking decent now. I think we are going to list the house next weekend.
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