I really, really love trees.

It is very hard for me to cut down a tree.

Yet, the elms that are growing all over my property sometimes are more dangerous that valuable.

My neighbor cut down two recently.

One was between the two houses and one was behind her home, but leaning on my roof.

Many a time I have had to trim these trees to protect my roof from being damaged.

And racoons and squirrels used them to get on my roof and sometimes cause a bit of damage also. And it was a favorite mating place for the raccoons. What a surprise they will have this spring to not have access to that space.

Winter is a very dangerous time for dead branches crashing down with the weight of a heavy snow.

And occasionally, a branch has fallen and just missed doing damage to the vehicles in my parking area in front of my house.

I will never forget the time I had gotten in my car, backed up a bit, remembered something I needed to take with me and gone into the house.

When I came back out, there was a huge, about 12′ branch sticking straight up with its tip deep in the ground, right where my car had just been. WHEW!!! 

Took a few really deep breaths. How lucky I had moved my car.

Sent out Blessings to all the Spirits who had guided me to move my car before that branch fell.

Another time, during a heavy Spring Snowstorm, I looked out at about 18″ of snow and a fallen ancient apple tree.

I had no idea just how dead it really was until that moment.

It fell just in front of the bridge and fence on the bridge, but totally blocking anyone’s exiting the parking area.

All the tenants and I grabbed hand saws or snow shovels.

We took turns sawing and hauling away the branches and trunk or shoveling snow to make the job easier and clear a path for cars to move to leave the driveway later.

In a few hours, we had the bridge cleared and celebrated how lucky it was no car was parked in that area and the bridge and fence were undamaged.

Years ago, when my retaining wall in the creek crumbled due to raging waters in the creek, I realized that one of the elm’s roots had weakened the wall. The roots had cracked it so badly that the swift moving water was able to dislodge that area of the retaining wall, which then led to more of the wall collapsing into the creek. A story for another time.

Last summer, when power line workers told me they needed to trim a couple of elms that were enmeshed in the wires, they asked I would allow them to just cut down the whole tree, as they had trimmed this one many times.

This tree had roots along side the same creek retaining wall. I thought hard, and decided that it was time for that tree to be cut down. Especially, since it would not cost me anything, the Utility company would pay for it.

But I had them just trim a Black Walnut tree that was also enmeshed in the wires, but had some life left in it. Pretty silly looking tree now, but still alive.

So today, I had tree cutters trim many dead branches on a huge elm tree behind my cottage.

One could see a few cracks in dead limbs, and some large dead limbs were hanging over the neighbors parking area with a couple of cars below.

I had been concerned about these branches last summer, but never had time to call for an estimate.

When my favorite Tree “Surgeon” was working on the property next door, I asked him to give me a price. I couldn’t quite afford that cost. So I asked him what he could do for what I could afford and he said they could take care of the most threatening branches. And that is what they did today.

Looks much safer now and I am imagining it not causing any problems during future snow storms.

Most of the day, I spent in my FantaFaces studio. Much slower progress working with feathers than in the past. Each year the quality of the feathers I purchase gets a little less fun to work with. I am really considering that I need to raise the prices just a little bit this year.

Been having good sales recently on ETSY, but seeing that it takes longer to create them is a balancing act to figure out how much to raise them so I don’t lose sales, but am better compensated for my time.

Will post some photos tomorrow.

Did a really unusual one for me, but with the Broncos going to the Super Bowl, couldn’t resist using their colors.