Cutting down a Tree

Last month we decided to undertake our first big house project. Painting the interior walls and ceilings, and painting the exterior trim and replacing the gutters was one thing, but we decided to take out a tree at the front of our yard before it grew too large such that we wouldn't be able to do it ourselves.

The tree in question

We might end up cutting down the smaller one someday, but for now it can stay.

We checked with Council to make sure we were allowed to cut down the tree (ie the tree wasn't heritage listed, which anyone looking at this tree could see it was not going to be heritage listed, but we checked just to be safe), borrowed a chain saw and got ready for a busy weekend.

Cutting down the tree didn't actually take very long, especially not after our neighbor saw what we were doing and came over with his chainsaw to help. It was the cleanup once the tree was in pieces all around the yard that took the longest (about three weekends in fact.) Last weekend we finally transported the leftover pile (after we'd sorted out all the firewood for next year) to the tip.

Tree limbs all over the front yard.

Tree stump with a little Jazz for scale.

Spring has begun to arrive in Uralla and Armidale! One of the decorative plum trees in our front yard just started to blossom. There were buds last week Friday night and after a little rain Saturday morning, the buds finally began to open. It's been a rainy week and Dumaresq Creek in Armidale was flooded with the road closed for two days in a row.

We've also been busy around the house and garden in preparation for summer, planting some dwarf fruit trees in front of our house and cultivating a few plants in our sunroom.

The cleaned up front yard

Fruit trees: apples, pears, peaches. Plus some potted figs, peas and blueberries.

Planting the peach tree

First plum blosssoms

Sunroom. When it's sunny all day it gets pretty blazing in here!