Timber

Well the yard had five large trees and then there were only four. We had to cut down one of the large silver maples (Acer saccharinum--I can't use that tidbit of knowledge very often). The tree had a bark inclusion at the base of a trunk that was comprised of five large beams. The lumberjack spent the last two days here cutting up the tree and will finish up the clean up and stump presumablely tomorrow. The tree was a little bit like the Silversteins giving tree. It gave us shade and privacy in the summer as well as hiding places for tag and perches for the song birds. Now most of it has been carted away. I did split up about four wheelbarrow loads for camp fires and smores. You can see in the picture that the tree is gone and the back yard 'park' is a little more open. We will give some thought about what type of tree to plant in its place over the winter--or consider leaving it grassy for our soccer and kickball games in the back yard. As an interesting note the picture of Sophia on the stump also shows one large beam/trunk of the tree remaining---that is the beam that was cracked but the lumberjack left it for the end.