Timber!

A while ago, we discovered that the Monterey Pine in front of the house (my mom's) had died, and that we had to take it down and, by law, replace it.

On Thursday, a group from the local Urban Lumberjacks came to take it down. They came with a huge truck that elevated off the ground on stilts and raised a large crane.



After setting up the crane, a man from the company was attached to the crane and raised up to the top of the tree, where he began chopping off parts of the tree. They took off the entire top of the tree at one time which looked really awesome. Once the tree was finally taken down...



...they brought out a huge grinder that took care of the rest of the stump. We gave out some of the wood to neighbors as firewood and the rest they took away.



Today we went out to Griggs Nursery in Carmel Valley to get a replacement tree, a marina arbutus (Arbutus glandulosa), a tree related to the madrone with small yellow-and-red berries. Scoutmaster Dave Randall went with us in his big F-450 truck, which really helped with the load. We strapped it laying down into the back of the truck and went back into town. When we arrived at the house, we brought down the tree, dug a hole, and put it into the ground.