We have so many woodpeckers, including the rarely-seen pileateds and red-headeds, because of the abundant habitat in the form of dead or dying trees around our property. And the cavities that our woodpeckers create make lovely homes for many other birds, bats and mammals. Regrettably, all that character was sitting just a little too close to our house and we were in danger of having one of its heavy limbs come crashing down on us during one of our frequent windstorms.
It has always been our philosophy to let Nature do what Nature does and just stay out of the way as much as possible. So we decided not to take the whole tree down, but to try only to remove certain branches that were a threat to our own abode.
The task of lopping off certain branches at certain places so they will fall in a certain direction is a complicated and dangerous one, and could not be attempted by a couple of tree-hugging amateurs like ourselves. So we called upon a team of logging professionals to help save our home as well as that of the birds and bats.
Logging is not a job for the faint of heart, and it is one that is only mastered after years of hands-on experience (and that's only if one's hands remain firmly attached to the ends of one's arms).
The first step in the process of removing only the deadest of the limbs is to accurately throw ropes around the targeted branches so they can be pulled away from the house during the cutting.
Next, the man on the ground hoists a chainsaw up to our climber who then performs a variety of Cirque du Soleil style maneuvers to reach just the right place at just the right angle.
Finally, in a cloud of 2-cycle exhaust and sawdust the offending branch goes crashing to the forest floor with a deafening thud!
And voila! Here's the finished product. Almost as good as what Nature could have done herself.
