The Biggest Oak

Against the neighborhood's wishes, our wooded dirt road is going to be widened and paved. The first thing the county thinks needs to be done is the elimination of all trees in the right of way.

In the past week our frontage lost approximately 35 trees. Some were not very large. A dozen pine trees were over 30 feet tall.

Two large oaks, the largest, about five feet in diameter, came down last.

First the chain saw guy cut a notch on the road side of the tree, the direction he wanted the tree to fall.


Next, he cut a slit in the other side of the tree just short of going all way through the trunk.

The big green machine pushed the oak over into the road.


SW Michigan is having a drought. It's very dry here. The tree cutters create dust with everything they do, but they exceeded all previous dust clouds when the biggest oak hit the road.



The tree was cut up just enough so it could be dragged down the road (creating more dust) to the neighbor's saw mill.


All that remains is the stump. It stays until the bulldozing starts.

Too many rings to count.