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Thread: Saying goodbye to this bad boy tomorrow.

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2007
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    Fort Smith, Arkansas
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    Saying goodbye to this bad boy tomorrow.

    Hackberry. Close to 100 feet tall it’s been providing shade and wildlife refuge for generations in my side yard. I suspect it was here before my house built in 1925 and it has the remains of a slowly rotting second one beside it. I have been hoping for years that it leaned because it grew that way due to having another growing within a few feet, and would remain stable. The lean has increased from 8 to 11 degrees in the last couple of years. It’s huge. I’m going to miss it shading my house in the summer. I had its crown pretty drastically thinned a couple of years ago to reduce wind load. We have tornadoes here. Still a bunch of dead and decaying limbs and bits and pieces fall to the ground regularly.
    I still wouldn’t do it if there were not a two story former carriage house, now a garage in its path if it fell. I have seen what a century old tree does to a house if it falls on it. I’m 😔. I hope to have the opportunity to count growth rings.
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    My three favorite things are the Oxford comma, irony and missed opportunities

    The problem with humanity is: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and God-like technology. Edward O. Wilson

  2. #2
    Your sadness at cutting down this fine tree, lends itself well to your character. It is a magnificent tree and if it had a consciousness, I think it would be honored that you take no joy from removing it but are doing so, mercifully, humbly and thoughtfully. The circle of life rules and each day we get a little older and a little further along. Our bark withers, decays and inside we age. I hope that when my time comes and I am cut down, my caretakers will do so with as much respect that you are showing here. Best wishes for a safe and thoughtful removal. hoping that some part of it can be salvaged or preserved as a memorial to the fine , healthy, strong tree that this used to be.
    All my best,

    Todd

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
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    SE PA - Central Bucks County
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    I unfortunately have had to share your sadness with tree removal recently, including a couple of "yuge" ash near the house that had died from da bug and a crabapple in front of our home. The two former were definitely a thread to the structure as a very large percentage of the dead ash on our property have been felled by wind. That Hackberry has probably seen a thing or three over the years and I hope you find some ways to use some portions of it in memorial for turning or other things you can manage.
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    SW Michigan
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    668
    I can relate to your story too. In 2011, a straight line wind storm came through our yard and uprooted many red and white oaks and a pignut hickory that were very old. The largest white oak was 40 + " in diameter. I hired a sawyer with a Woodmizer for a day and together we cut, well he cut, I stacked about 2000+bd. ft. of lumber. I also had about 8 cords of firewood. Not a total waste of the beautiful trees, but our yard ambience changed drastically. We are still grateful no one was hurt, my wife had minutes before closed the windows on the 3 season porch which was then crushed by a hickory.

  5. #5
    This is a bit different of a story, but when my wife and I were living in Florida we had two pine trees in front of out house. I wanted to remove them and plant a live oak but my wife didn't want to take them down.

    Then one day it was raining hard - as it does in Florida - and there was a tremendous BANG. Lighting struck one of the pine trees and killed it. After we removed it, the one remaining tree looked a bit odd so we took it out and put in a live oak.

    As I told my wife, God was on my side.

    Mike

    [I went to Google maps and got a picture of the house. The live oak has grown quite a bit.]
    Idlewild-Lane.jpg
    Last edited by Mike Henderson; 01-21-2021 at 6:32 PM.
    Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
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    E TN, near Knoxville
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    Quote Originally Posted by Todd Trebuna View Post
    ...hoping that some part of it can be salvaged or preserved as a memorial to the fine , healthy, strong tree that this used to be.
    ...
    If there is not enough to saw into lumber you might cut some chunks for woodturning blanks. If you don't turn wood yourself you might be able to find someone near who will make something for you. (Bunch of woodturners in Ky!) Some people don't like working with hackberry but I got some once that was beautiful near the center.

    elm_blanks.jpg elm_box_comp.jpg
    (I thought it was elm when I got the wood but was told later by a credible person that it was hackberry)

    I have a big hackberry close to my shop, almost 40" in diameter, that started to show signs of decay about 5 years ago, now it's got a widening strip of decay running up one side of the trunk. Getting worse every year, needs to be taken down this year. It's going to be so sad to see it go although we have no shortage of trees. It's the one marked in this drone shot:

    hackberry_tree.jpg

    Sure wish I had a bucket truck.

    JKJ

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Minneapolis, MN
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    5,427
    My previous house had a giant cottonwood tree that provided a lot of shade. The problem was it was rotten in the center and eventually had to come down. It really changed the character of the yard when it came down.

  8. #8
    The wild hackberry is a very fast growing tree, with an average lifespan of maybe 30 years, towards the end of which it bestows gifts on the unsuspecting. :^/

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Location
    Vancouver Canada
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    716
    Oh, i feel your pain.
    My house was built in 1931. We bought it in 1950, and our apple tree was there when we moved in.
    That tree meant "home" to me while I traveled the world. When we came back, we got the house, but the tree has been dying over the last few years.
    Last week it finally just gave up it's ghost and literally fell over.
    I'll clean it out and replace it within a month.
    Young enough to remember doing it;
    Old enough to wish I could do it again.

  10. #10
    Wow, I didn't realize they could get that big. Ours (Central TX) seem to top out at about the size of a mulberry and they're generally viewed as a trash tree. Hope you share some pics of projects from it.

    Erik
    Ex-SCM and Felder rep

  11. #11
    Join Date
    May 2007
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    Fort Smith, Arkansas
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    1,985
    So it begins.
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    Last edited by Michael Weber; 01-22-2021 at 1:10 PM.
    My three favorite things are the Oxford comma, irony and missed opportunities

    The problem with humanity is: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and God-like technology. Edward O. Wilson

  12. #12
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Fort Smith, Arkansas
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    It’s mostly gone except the big trunk. A job for Saturday. And removal, stump grinding and clean up. They were the low bid but I they certainly seemed to know what they were doing. My wife was disappointed in how they took the tree down from top to bottom. She expected people to show up with axes and just drop the whole thing. .B3EEE650-3F40-48D2-AFF0-A22E737CE0CA.jpg1BC9B563-B196-41F5-811B-AC0CEABE98E5.jpgE1D863D6-2A83-45FA-BD15-89F51217B0AE.jpgF25579A2-BE7E-40A5-A1A0-3C77D0A70F67.jpg
    Last edited by Michael Weber; 01-23-2021 at 10:52 AM.
    My three favorite things are the Oxford comma, irony and missed opportunities

    The problem with humanity is: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and God-like technology. Edward O. Wilson

  13. #13
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Weber View Post
    My wife was disappointed in how they took the tree down from top to bottom. She expected people to show up with axes and just drop the whole thing.
    Women, eh. Ya gotta love em, and ya damned well better respect em.
    Never, under any circumstances, consume a laxative and sleeping pill, on the same night

  14. #14
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    May 2007
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    Last of the crown coming down.
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U4-kPKghG5E
    My three favorite things are the Oxford comma, irony and missed opportunities

    The problem with humanity is: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and God-like technology. Edward O. Wilson

  15. #15
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Fort Smith, Arkansas
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    Quote Originally Posted by Myk Rian View Post
    Women, eh. Ya gotta love em, and ya damned well better respect em.
    your preaching to the choir Myk ��
    My three favorite things are the Oxford comma, irony and missed opportunities

    The problem with humanity is: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and God-like technology. Edward O. Wilson

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