This is our cat pen. We like it. It enables us to leave the cats out all day while we are at work without worrying about them. Sometimes we even leave them out all night. They have shade and stuff to climb on. It's a really big cage and is right outside our front door.
As you can see it was a little saggy from all the years of snow piling up on top and branches falling from that big willow tree behind it.
It has been damaged in the past but it was still pretty sturdy.
However, the tree behind it was not holding up so well. In the wind storm we had last week we watched this huge trunk sway back and forth. If it weren't a short storm it would have fallen on our house. See the cracks in it?
It's cracked in several places on every side. It was totally rotten and really, just about to fall.
It was quite a worry.
I had to have someone come out right away. It was a really tall tree. See our house roof down at the bottom or the photo?
The first thing he had to do was cut all the high branches off. These photos were taken after he had already been working on it about 3 hours.
In order to get the branches down he asked us to remove part of the top wire of the cat pen. I wasn't too happy about this because when he looked at the job I asked him if he could get it down without it falling on the pen and he said yes, he would tie it up to the trunk and take it in pieces. Now he was saying he couldn't because it was swaying so much. Humph. We reluctantly took off part of the roof and he threw branches down into the pen.
When he got to this point I saw him just sit there and stare at the tree for a long time. I knew this was not a good sign because I had seen him do it earlier; right before he asked us to remove part of the top of the pen.
As you can see that big trunk is leaning right over our roof. I asked him if it would damage the house if it fell on it and he said - oh yeah.
So there was nothing to do except to agree to dismantle more of the cat pen.
His plan was to drop it straight down into this section.
First he made this cut.
Then he was still real worried that it would fall on the house so he hooked a rope around it and through that other tree and to the Suburban.
Then this guy got in to slowly back up and add tension to pull it away from the house- if needed.
He went back up to make another cut but it swayed and his saw got stuck. Totally stuck.
He tied a rope to it and got down.
He decided he would just let the Suburban pull a little and see if that would bring it down. Actually it was like pulling a really loose tooth. The Suburban barely moved and it dropped.
It did go straight down into the cat pen but then it crashed over. You can't really see the damage but it's bad. It came inches from his truck.
All there is left to do is clean up.
I will take more photos soon. He came back today and cleaned up most of the branches but obviously the ones he threw down into the pen are under that huge trunk and can't be cleaned up until the trunk is moved. He said he will come back on Tuesday and pick the trunk up with something. I don't know what exactly. I hope I will be here to take photos of that too. Meanwhile, we have no cat pen and the cats are not happy when they can't go out. :(
This is what the damage looked like.
You can see how rotted out it was.
And yet, it was supporting all these branches and they were very long (tall) and heavy. When the wind blew it was too much weight for a rotting trunk. All these branches were growing from the rotten trunk.
He arrived with a bobcat to remove it from the pen.
He chained it up to lift and drag it out.
He said he was going to take it away but decided he couldn't so he left it here, by the pile of chips he left last time.
This is what it looks like in our driveway.
This is what the cat pen looked like when he left. You can't tell but there were still a lot of branches and logs under the big trunk he just moved.
The girls cleaned it all out and took down all the wire.
