Fortunately, our tenant, who was (ironically) enjoying a cigarette beneath the trees, heard some funny noises up above and noticed the smoke rising. A call to BC Hydro brought a truck out to investigate and a tree pruning crew to clean up the mess.
But when they arrived, their advice was simple. The trees were badly overgrown and presented a very real danger during windy, wet weather. They make excellent conducters when they're wet and if you happened to put your hand on a tree that was carrying a charge during a rainstorm, you stood a good chance of becoming a conduit for the electricity to get to the ground.
We had already been considering getting the trees removed, so when they offered to take them out for no charge, we said yes. My wife, Heather, snapped a few pictures of the process, which I've posted below.
As luck would have it, the day they took the trees down, the temperature took off here in Victoria. We've had record-setting heat every day since, which the extra sunlight in the morning hasn't helped. But although the house is a bit warmer, we like the light and the way it looks from the street. Now we just need to get the front yard landscaped...and maybe take down the cedar beside the house...and...the list goes on and on.
The only real negative out of all this is that now we're "those neighbours that moved in and chopped down those big cedars!" We'll never live down that rep!
Here's the job half-complete. We had three trees like the one above.
We went from 3 trees to a lot of stumps.
Roxy didn't know what to make of the change. But there might be rabbits in those things!
These guys were great. Nice bit of product insertion in this shot. I expect a cheque in the mail.
You wouldn't believe how fast free firewood gets grabbed by people. It was amazing.
And now, for the first time in about 40 years, you can see the front of our house from the street.
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