Tree Lopping

Tree Lopping is a mild term for what we did this weekend, but I think we will be in for quite a bit of real tree lopping in the months ahead, so this was a taster.

We started, with a dead tree—no idea what it was (except that it was %#!@ annoying, because of the way the branches were tangled up together**)—overhanging the back corner of the house.

Every time the wind picked up, I expected the whole thing to fall into M's study. So it had to be removed. The only problem being, as aI said, that it was hanging over the back corner of the house, so any branch that was lopped off it would fall straight through our tissue-paper roof. Cut a branch and "instant-skylight"!

Here is a crappy photo of the tree from before we moved in (it is the twig, on the far right, next to the steps).

And here is another photo, taken from closer to the house, mid-demolition.

(To give you an idea of scale, that ladder is four meters when it is fully opened up like that, so the "twig" was about eight meters high, and the main trunk, about ten meters long.)

Anyway, with the help of some well-placed rope, we were able to safely bring down one branch at a time. (Safely, but not without a regular dollop of fear.) Eventually, it was just a stump

We have left the stump intact so that we can use it as a lever when we dig out the roots, a much less pressing—and less stressful—job.

* * * * *

While we were removing this tree, we had another visit from a Telstra technician (our fifth?) to move the modem which was installed a few weeks back. The signal was so weak that we couldn't actually use our computers without first running a data cable the full length of the house!

Now we have a computer connection that works, but our digital TV thingy (the T-Box?) still doesn't work. So we will, no doubt, require another visit from a Telstra technician to finish the job started some moths back, back in the before-time.

**The branches, even when safely on the ground, were almost impossible to break down into pieces without injuring yourself because of the way they clung to each other in unexpected and bloody-annoying ways. It was like trying to disentangle yourself from a cupboard full of coat-hangers, or a Barrel full of monkeys (as in these!).