Should I have a post of the New Year's resolutions or revelations or "rememberings"? It may be all of those in that I'm going through photos that I took during the last year and didn't get around to sorting. Many were saved for future blog posts which never made it here. So this is one of those. My brother had a tree that needed to be removed. It was a beautiful oak tree that he hadn't planted but had sprouted near his driveway. Now, many years later it was lifting the driveway and the sidewalk. My son does this kind of work when he's not at his regular Forest Service job. This is a link to the Lakewood Tree Service Facebook page.

                Work was already underway when I got there.

                                                            When a tree is this close to a house you don't just make a cut at the bottom and fell the tree. You start at the top. You also don't just let the branches drop any which way.

                                                             There ares a lot of ropes and gear involved.

                                                     Ground crew is important.

                                                         Some of the ropes keep the tree climber safe and others are for controlling the parts of the tree as they are cut.

                                                            This tree was taken down in many separate pieces.

               Each cut is carefully planned and ropes are placed so that the branches fall safely.

                                                           That red rope is tied so that the chunk of wood will be caught on the pulley...

                                                            ...and lowered to the ground slowly.

                  Cutting the next piece of wood.

                    Spikes on the boots.

                                                            Like I said before, there is a lot of gear.

                   At this point Matt decided that he could take the rest of the tree down from a cut at the bottom.

                     It was sad to lose that big tree, but fascinating to watch the process.