Well, after several years of suffering through the nasty smell of fermenting berries and severe allergic reactions worse than poison ivy, the 100+ foot Gingko Tree that once graced the front yard is gone. While it had its positive points in providing shade, privacy and a lovely sound as the breezes passed through, its negatives finally outweighed the positives when it crushed Kelly’s car a couple years ago. With the odd storms and weather patterns that we have had recently (60 mile an hour winds etc.) I finally accepted that the tree had to go.

Since a large maple tree on the driveway had come down in one of our winter storms and we still had various piles of debris from the microburst storm a couple years ago which we were unable to move ourselves, I had Johnsons Tree Removal come out and do a little spring cleaning.

Six or seven trucks came rolling down the driveway at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, April 16. After seeing them remove the maple and all the other cleanup piles in about an hour, I thought they would be done with the gingko by noon or so. Mmm…not so much. Matt Johnson and his crew finished up and left at about 4 p.m. They used a cherry picker for a few hours and wielded a chainsaw bigger than I have ever seen (as tall as Matt!)

But, it is now gone, except for the stump (stump grinding is an expense that I just couldn’t swing this year) and maybe we will now have some fonder memories of the tree….or not. It was a pretty nasty tree and was prolific with those berries.

And if you couldn’t guess, Kelly is very, very happy to say good riddance to the tree!