Something from January of 2018

On January 9, 2018, I had Davey Tree take down the old plum tree and the pin oak that was too close to the garage.  The stump photo is what is left of the plum tree.  Keith from Davey Tree said that this wood will darken up.  It looks gorgeous as it is now.  The plum tree was diseased and getting really ratty looking as we could not prune it properly.  I am getting accustomed to looking at the pond from the back deck and seeing no plum tree branches obscuring the view.  I will miss the white cloud of blossoms in the early spring, though.  We were not harvesting very many of  the yellow plums, although it still produced far more than we needed.  Hope Trevor and family are not too disappointed that we took it down.
The pin oak had lovely Fall color, but was too close to the garage, so it had to come down.  There is a rhododendron growing next to pin oak.  Since the oak has come down, I can already see improvement in the rhodo.  The first photo shows the fantastic machine that took the Keith over the garage roof and he was able to take down the pin oak tree right from the bucket of the machine.  He saved some wood from the trunk of the oak and the plum for our fire place.