1. And So It Begins
March 2019, Ann Marie's neighbor is ordered by the Village to remove two of her trees. An eighty foot tall ash tree and a hundred year old red oak that had succumbed to insect damage.
2. Sizing Up The Project
After the trees were dropped, Ann determined what she will harvest for firewood and what will be transported to the dump for disposal as compost.
3. Limbs Go First
All limbs larger than 1-inch and smaller than 3-inches were transported across the creek for processing into backyard fire pit and recreational burner use.
4. Sized, Sorted, Bagged
The smaller stuff is split, sorted, bagged for ease of handling and staged for delivery to recreational burn pit users.
5. Small Stuff Done
This smaller pieces are split and bagged for delivery and usage as recreational firewood. Ann gives this wood away to her friends.
6. Now The Real Work
These trunk pieces will be split into stove size pieces for use by some of Ann's friends in heating their homes during the Wisconsin winter.
7. Conifer Lane Lumberjill
The hardest working person in the Village. She doesn't know what the words take a break, sit down, you're retired, you're 60, mean.
8. Just A Few Cords To Split
After being rough cut into manageable size pieces, the larger stuff is transported across the creek for final size splitting, after which it is staged for delivery.
9. Weather Delays? Why Not?
During the project, there was four days of rain totaling over 5-inches. Two snowfalls of 3-inches and 5-inches, and cold days with single digit wind chills. Typical Wisconsin spring.
10. The End Is Near
The last day of rough cut sawing, Ann's Stihl chainsaw died. A quick rental of a great little Makita from Home Depot saved the day. Her implement dealer really let her down this time.
11. Final Pile Grows
Rough cut, transported across the creek, split and stacked. All in a days work. This final pile of heating size wood is rapidly growing into about 10 face cord.
12. About Ten Cords Here
This pile is done. Even after giving away three plus cords of red oak firewood to a neighbor, there's still plenty to transport out to Waukesha County.
13. After Delivery, Project Done
The long shadows falling across this last pile says it all. A tough project completed in a timely fashion, in a professional manner, by a very special lady. Ann Marie was awesome.
13. And So It Ends
A look back at the original site. All tree remnants removed, residue raked-up, bagged and delivered to the dump. Not to worry, there's still a lot of ailing trees in the neighborhood.