End of an era

After 30 years, our beautiful cottonwood is gone. My husband bought it for me right after we had been in our house for a year.  He drove up to Victorville to buy it.  For years owls visited it, as well as the neighborhood Cooper's hawk.  Doves lined her branches, as well as a family of ravens.  It had a beehive in one of the main branches and the neighbors next door threatened us with a lawsuit if we didn't cut it down because two branches were hanging over their yard.  We have been TRYING to find someone to remove the bees before we had it trimmed now for 6 months!!!  Either the guy can remove the bees, but can't trim the tree, or they could trim it, but NOT before the bees were removed.  We were in a Catch 22 situation. The bees were NOT aggressive.  I bumped into them almost daily while out back putting out birdseed for the finches, sparrows, and Verdins.  They never bothered me nor were they aggressive.

I had a couple of gardners drive by, look at the 60' tree, and speed off.  I actually saw one of them do that.  Our own crew that removed the eucalyptus out front never responded to hubby's phone calls.  Never showed up, never called, never texted.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zilch communication.

In desperation I started following trucks with tree trimming cranes!  YES!  I even called a couple of them (well, hubby did), but they were so expensive we couldn't afford them.  Then, an UNLICENSED tree guy who cut two dead trees down the street stopped by with a written estimate, but he was unlicensed and carried NO INSURANCE~  Uh, no...that wouldn't work out.  Was it a deal breaker?  YES, absolutely.

So, back to stalking tree trimming companies.  However, their prices were WAY out of our range.

Finally, in desperation, I started calling pest control companies that advertised bee removal and ONE called back and said the guy would stop by to take a look.  He wasn't scared off!  In fact, he said he could not only remove the bees (safely), but he could trim the cottonwood.  SAY WHAT?  I let hubby work out the details and he and his crew showed up yesterday with a truck/crane/lift combination.  However, it took them 2 HOURS to back the truck into our back yard because our sand was so slippery the truck couldn't get traction.  I finally said, "I've got a whole roll of chain link you can put down." So, they put it down and the truck made it (FINALLY!) into the back yard.  2 hours later, I heard chain saws.  The limbs over the neighbor's yard came down first, then some outer ones, and finally the huge, hollow one with the beehive.  They got to work smoking the bees and vacuuming them up.  By the end of the day, 90% of the tree was gone.  Only the trunk and the two main (HUGE) branches are left.

They did get the queen because at the end of the day, she was contained and the worker bees were swarming their truck.  Fortunately, they were NOT killer bees!  They will be taken down to Coachella and set up there to pollinate the crops which are grown down there in the lower end of our valley.

Now, however, we have a yard full of debris.  Anybody want some wood?

I'll post photos when I upload them from my cell phone.

Take care.
~Cheryl Ann~