The story of the eucalyptus tree.

We had an old eucalyptus tree in the front yard.  We talked about taking it out.  We got a couple quotes from tree guys to trim it or take it out.  One guy told us when the tree hasn't ever been trimmed like this one that the branches catch the wind during a storm and blow the tree over.  "At least it is leaning toward the street," he said.   We decided to leave the tree in and just get it trimmed.  We didn't want to spend the money to take it out and it shaded the roof in the afternoon.

Eucalyptus tree on the corner of the yard

 That very Sunday we had a drenching storm with gusts of wind up to 60mph.  We were home in the afternoon.  Chris heard a gust of wind and a crunch.  He looked out and the tree was in the street.

Eucalyptus tree on the corner of the street

 A neighbor wanted the firewood so he and a buddy showed up with chainsaws the next week and cut up most of the major branches and took two pickup truck loads away.  Since it fell in the street, the city cleaned up the leafy branches and cut the trunk up to the property line.

Chris chipped away the dirt and bark so they could cut it with the chainsaw

 Then some ward members came to help cut the stump up.  Actually, a son-in-law of one of them who trains forest service guys in clearing trees came with his sharp chainsaw and pretty much did the whole thing himself.  Chris cleaned up the trunk where he wanted to cut (it keeps the saw sharp). 

This is as small as we could get the stump without paying someone to do the work.

 Then we were left with a giant dirt/root ball.  I got a couple of quotes from guys to get rid of it.  They all suggested crazy, labor intensive and expensive ways to get rid of it.  Then the first guy who told me it would probably fall in the street said he could just grind it away. (Why didn't any of the others say they could just grind it up?)  So, when we got back from our spring break trip it looked like this...

Stump has been ground up into mulch.

If you look close you can see a faint green sheen on the ground behind the wood chips.  Our 1 week old baby grass is growing.  Now we need to grade the slope on the corner and clean it up so we can plant some flowering bushes on the corner and a new tree above them.