Cool Tree Guys

[LillFilly]

Last year the city hired some tree trimmers to trim branches overhanging power lines on the right-of-way in front of houses on my street. Only...they did a piss-poor job. Some trees weren't touched, others were butchered. Apparently, they were supposed to hang notices that your tree was getting the cut. We didn't get one. This year, I see another company doing the same on the street next to ours. I'm afraid another trimming will kill our beautiful spruce, so I stopped to talk with the guys working about if I could get the tree trimmed myself and how would I know if I was on the list? They seemed surprised I didn't get a notice last year, and gave me the number for their boss so I could speak to him. They were really nice and so was the boss. He said they actually do tree work when they're not working for the city, and he could stop by and take a look to see if he could shape the tree up for me. It was nice that he gave them permission to give his number to me, and that he was willing to help me with my problem.

Here's what the poor tree looks like! It's about a 30-foot tall white spruce. The trimming job doesn't make much sense, does it? It was a good, healthy tree; not like the stuff they cut was dead and cracking.

[Ironclad Alibi]

I had a similar tree and wire in front of my house. The telephone wires were rubbing the branches. At some point in the distant past, the phone company's solution was to strap a couple of 2x4s around the wire so the 2x4s would rub the branch instead. I pointed this out to phone company service people many times when they were working in the area. At long last they eased the tension on the wire so it sagged under the branch. Eventually I had someone trim the branch from the tree, and the tree has since been removed.

[LillFilly]

I figured their concern was dead branches falling on the wires; but why trim all the way down, then leave another 2-feet of branches over the wires anyway? Gah!