Fortunately today was sunny and dry, albeit rather chilly. Had it rained all day as it did yesterday I would not have been able to photograph the workers from Arbor-Venture Tree Care taking down
our ailing and brittle cypress tree photographed by Jackie 5 days ago.
Four men comprised the team of tree surgeons. One climbed into the branches while another remained beneath him, partly, I imagine, for security, and
especially to receive severed limbs as they were lowered.
Others reduced the limbs underneath the cypress,
carried them along the garden to the back drive, and fed them to a chipper which spewed them into a purpose-built truck.
Even early on in the process the fearless chain-saw wielder up aloft demonstrated his awareness of which branches he could safely walk along.
Sometimes he didn’t have much to stand on at all,
although he was well harnessed,
and belted with equipment.
All the men wore masks as protection from flying wood chips.
Gradually, continuing to display enviable flexibility, the lumberjack worked his way along the main branches,
eventually, pausing for final height direction from the Head Gardener,
completing the framework for next year’s scented climbing plants.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s piri-piri lemon chicken: roast potatoes, including the sweet variety, and parsnips; with bright green broccoli and Brussel’s sprouts, and crunchy orange carrots, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Calvet Prestige Bordeaux 2017.