Timberrrrrr!

As previously mentioned, BA and I are in Madison Wisconsin for a few days. Today, walking from our lodgings to breakfast, we discovered what the sounds we had been hearing were about.  A large old tree is being taken down a few houses down the street.

Its quite the production to remove a tree.  And doing so in a safe fashion, without damaging nearby homes, vehicles and people adds to the challenge.  We briefly admired the project on our way out, and on the way home, full of a delicious breakfast (if you’re in Madison, I highly recommend the veggie benedict at Ancora coffee house, sautéed veggies with poached eggs and a spicy chipotle hollandaise on top–YUM!), we stopped and watched the proceedings for a while.

The tree is not chopped off in one cut at the bottom, falling over in the old logging fashion. Rather, they take off branches from bottom to top, and then remove the central trunk and top in pieces from the top down, using ropes and pulleys to lower each piece, guiding it to a safe landing position on the ground.  A person on the ground acts much as a belayer would in climbing, sliding the rope through his hands, controlling the descent of the cut piece, a few hundred pounds of tree at a time.

Heavy equipment is involved, with a lift, well anchored to the ground, carrying the up person, who attaches ropes, pulleys and carabiners and makes the high cuts.  A large, specially modified front end loader picks up the big pieces and delivers them to a truck for hauling off. The smaller and leafier pieces are fed into an industrial size shredder/chipper and land in the back of another truck. Chainsaws of various sizes are also used for cutting the big trunk and cutting down the branches to a manageable size. Its noisy and busy, and impressive.

For today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt of Slide.