There’s a slow rolling environmental disaster occurring in Blackhawk County, IA where I live… The Emerald Ash Borer is boring its way through the heavily populated Ash trees that grow in this region, and sadly, my yard had its fair share of those large trees. The Borer digs into the tree weakening it, which eventually results in the tree’s denouement.
Besides the loss of the beauty that the Ash tree lends to the landscape, the tree itself, when compromised, can be downright deadly. If you’ve ever seen a full size tree fall, there’s no warning and it falls immediately with the full force of gravity. A full grown tree is quite heavy and will kill or crush anything in its downward path. As you will note in the photo to the right, we had one unexpectedly drop a few years ago. Fortunately, it did not hit my house or my neighbors, but took out some new expensive landscaping that we put in the season before and destroyed a perfectly good Oak tree as it fell. Finally, it was an expensive clean up.
With some anxiety Nettie and I recently concluded that the remaining two Ash trees that dominate spaces in both the front and back yards were dying from the Borer invasion. The typical symptoms of sparse vegetation at the top and new odd sized green shoots emanating from the lower portion of the tree convinced us that those two trees had to get got as soon as practical for safety reasons.
So, I took some bids from tree removal companies. Because Ash trees are dying all over the county, the tree guys have more work than they can say grace over, and they can charge whatever the market will bear.
The first tree guy I spoke to we had used before and his pricing was, in the past, reasonable; however, this time his pricing was almost double from last year… See what I mean about what the market will bear? In the end, we could not use him because he cuts strictly from a cherry picker truck and our tree in the back was inaccessible to him. He informed me that we needed a “climber” to get the tree in the backyard.
So, I took two more quotes. The first quote was really depressing as he wanted many, several thousands of dollars. The next guy also wanted thousands of dollars but he was at least two thousand less than the previous guy! I shook hands on the deal with the second guy and his company Twin City Tree Service would do the job.
The tree guys finally arrived yesterday after weeks and weeks of waiting. Being retired, I was around for most of the action. They were a professional group, all wearing company t-shirts, hard hats and with three trucks full of equipment.
As you can see below, they used a portable platform to get up into the heights of the tree and methodically whittle it down. Then the tree was dismembered and the remains hauled away. I am not sure what happens to the wood, but a lot of solid bodied electric guitars could have been made from those trees.
Tree removal hardware 
Whittling it down 
Hauling it away
It was very nice in that the wood hauler used rubber tracks instead of wheels which was much easier on my grass. The final step in the process besides fine cleanup was the grinding down of the stumps, which can be seen below. It was a pro job with the use of curtains to limit the spread of the ground chips.
Twin City did a great job, but in the end as the title of this entry states, it was “Money for Nothin'” as Nettie and I poured several thousands of dollars into a process that left nothing but a slight depression in the yard. I will miss those trees but I’m glad they’re gone and the worry along with them…
