That Time of Year

 Getting ready for the big holiday coming in December.

Saturday I assembled our skinny tree. No lights.  Last year I took all the prestrung lights off because too many strands were out and I couldn't find the offending bulb causing it.  When I put it up Saturday I'd forgotten that I hadn't found new lights at the end of last season.  On the way home from church I got a set of LED mini lights 58 feet long and put those on Sunday.  Picture will have to wait until fully decorated.

I gave granddaughter #1 the task of arranging the lights on this ceramic tree. Notice Mary and a llama?  I brought those home from a craft fair at church.  Apparently Mary and the Babe had lost Joseph so they couldn't sell the set.  

Saturday my Advent calendar arrived from Larkin Tea Company, my source for lea leaves. Each day will be a different tea to try!  Can't wait.

I'm almost done with the Christmas gift shopping too.  Now to tackle Christmas cards then get on with the rest of the decorating.

Another Addendum

 

An old photo with the foreground being my neighbor's yard.  This photo predates the building of her mother's house which she came to own.  The barn on the back of her property (not pictured) was there first which probably explains the fencing and these steer.

Could the leaves at the top of the photo be from the tree that was felled?

Our neighbor's house is not in this bird's eye shot of the flat where we now live.

Here's a cropping focusing on the church (Meeting House) on the left, our neighbor's barn, then you can see the peak of our roof with our barn in front of it.

All this to say that I guess the tree was not as old as it looked.

By the way there were no visible hollow spots until the trimming began.  It looked pretty sturdy.

Addendum to Death of a Tree

 Dan learned Wednesday night at the volunteer fire department training that the tree was 75 years old. The growth rings were very widely spaced - a fast grower.  It was there, though before the house was built.

Our neighbor's brother wanted her to have it cut down last year after a large limb came down in the driveway but she demurred.  He persuaded her to have it cut this year again because of the fear of the damage to the house should another limb come off.  Cutting it down after most of the leaves had fallen was easier than earlier in the leaf cycle.

Still a very sad demise for such a nice tree.

Death of a Tree

In my header above there is a very large silver maple tree.

Below I have cropped the header photo to focus on the tree in my neighbor's yard. 

It's a tree with a very big trunk but some time ago it must have lost its center.  No one ever limbed it up with the result that through the years the branches grew to be the size of trunks and very spread out.

Tuesday morning we heard trucks arrive and saw a tree service setting up.

At first we thought they were going to limb it up after all some of the limbs were over the house.

As the day progressed we realized that was not happening.

The tree was coming down.

Our neighbor lives alone and has battled with the piles of leaves this tree produced every year.

I guess this year she decided she'd had enough with the leaves and the threat of damage to her roof.

Most of the wood went into the chipper.  That was very loud all day.

The biggest sections were set aside and on Wednesday we say the claw machine take them to the back of her property.

It was a sad sight to see such a magnificent tree meet its death.

You can see where the major trunk was divided years ago.

No more branches.

The stump cut into two pieces and

Wednesday the stump below soil line was ground up by this remote controlled machinery.

The neighborhood will miss that tree.