Chainsaw, ladder, electric cables… what could possibly go wrong?
One of the first things we knew we’d have to do is pollard the tree in our front walled garden. It had been ‘let go’ for probably the last 10 years. Historically, it had been pollarded [pruned] to keep the overall size suitable for its location next to the Maison de Maitre, but was now obscuring the view of the house, and in turn, the view from several rooms of the house.
Our neighbour across the road had 21 similarly overgrown trees that he had paid professionals a fortune to pollard earlier this year. One of his had fallen across the road, and he was not going to risk another accident!
We only had the one overgrown tree, so with the help of father-in-law Mike, we thought we could sort it out ourselves.
For me, the biggest concerns were that I would either hurt myself, or one of the long limbs would fall onto the electric or phone cables that were passing through the tree – imagine cutting off the village internet & electricity!! Forget the cost of being charged for the repairs – the eternal shame would be horrific. The electric #Stihl chainsaw was actually quite lightweight to swing around up high, and very effective.
We took it steady, and gradually the tree returned to intended size, with Mike underneath chopping around with his #stihl petrol chainsaw.
No injuries, no broken wires.
That just left the enormous pile of branches in the garden to sort out.
A lot of them I have cut up into little lengths to fit into the woodburning stove in our kitchen. I’ll have to wait until next winter to let them dry out.
The thinner leafier branches I stacked up in a huge pile and was planning on having a massive garden bonfire. That was, until I learned that its now illegal to burn green garden waste at home. Anything I didn’t want to compost (all of it) had to go to the dechetterie for them to compost. Hey ho.
Three van loads later and the garden was clear.
That was, until the father in law started on the Yew Tree…
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