The town’s been wanting to remove an oak that is rotting and is just enough on the road that they hit it with the plow sometimes. It’s a family favorite as it’s on a dirt road we often walk on, and it’s absolutely massive. It has 3 enormous trunks, and each trunk has several branches the size of the trees I usually take. It’s next to a power line, rotted and far bigger than anything I can reasonably tackle. Let’s just say I’ve been excited when I heard about their plan to drop it. In Vermont when a town or utility needs to clear trees, the landowners get to call dibs. That was a year ago and I thought maybe they had forgotten about it. And so one day, I hear some chainsawing in the distance, and when this happens, I usually follow the noise to make sure no one is poaching my trees, and because I like to chat with neighbors. To my surprise a whole crew is there, 7 guys with heavy equipment going at the big oak. In a very typical Vermont interaction I get to meet the road foreman, and I tell him I’m definitely keeping the tree. He was aware, the information wasn’t lost in the year it took for the gears to get in motion.
I tell him he’s welcome to leave it over the bank for me to come grab, to which he responds he’ll drop it in my driveway if I prefer… Yes sir, I very much prefer not moving several tons of tree by myself :). And that’s how 31 nice big chunks of oak showed up in my driveway. I didn’t have to lift a finger, and I got to enjoy a good show (watching pros and heavy machinery at work). It’s Christmas all over again.
Some chunks are massive, and there is still a very full day’s worth of work left behind in the woods. All in all there’s probably 2 years worth of firewood. But maybe some of it is worth milling, we’ll see.
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