Trimming the Tree and Saving the Birds

I don't know if you remember when I posted about our nectarine tree that was dying last year and commented how I thought it looked like a "Dr. Seuss" tree but here is a link to that post.

I had to take that tree down so I could put a peach tree in its place last fall as the entire tree did finally die due to boring insects. I was sad to see it go but have hopes that the peach will take off and hopefully, it is a seedling from one of my peaches as my tree was wonderful, juicy and sweet. It may have sprouted from a neighbors tree which was a white peach and was a bit dry and non-flavorful.

We won't find out this year as none of my trees have any fruit on them. I may have 6 plums this year, no pears, no apples on the variety tree and no green plums and a few apples on one of the golden delicious trees.

It seems like God gives us bumper crop years before famine years where the fruit trees are concerned.

I have had some issues with a new roof I put on a few years back and will maybe get to that post in a few days but I needed new gutters on the house and had someone come and give me a bid a few weeks back and they were supposed to come but I postponed them a week.

I have worked and worked on my gutters trying to seal them for years, cleaning them out regularly, using the rubber seal spray etc. I think if I had used some thin rubber tubing and sealed it between the seams, it may have sealed but I have had to hammer them in several times and they were put up by the last owners and not a professional so they just haven't really ever worked well.

I figured if I were getting new gutters, I would need to get the front trees cut down or pruned short so that they wouldn't hit the gutters on the way down damaging the expensive new seamless gutters.

I had Princess Five help me and on the first day, we cut off about four or five major branches hanging over the house and one section of the larger tree. It took us hours in the super heat to cut the wood for the wood pile and clean up all the smaller branches for the garbage man. You can see in the first three pictures what we got done the first day. Lots of fire wood and lots of garbage and bundles for the garbage men the next day.

We cut down major branches from both front trees the second day and I had blisters on my hands from the saw, rough bark and on that day, I could hear two birds freaking out every time I would go outside or got on the ladder to cut. They were dive bombing me and so I looked for a nest and high on one of the front branches was a nest. I could see a baby beak just over the top and could hear several baby birds and the mom kept bringing worms but I could see and hear both dad and momma bird extremely upset whenever we were near that branch or sawing on the tree at all. You can see it in the y section in the photo above.

I had one last large branch on the back to cut but didn't want to take a chance on it hitting the front branch with the nest in it as I accidently killed some babies in a nest last year and felt horrible for days. I figured it wouldn't matter if we left that lone front branch I could cut by myself later in order for the bird family to survive for another month. I ended up working on the other tree for the rest of the second day and you can see how the trees ended up on that day. We had about 10 bundles of twigs for the garbage and another few loads of fire wood for the pile.

The last day, we had play practice in the morning but when we got home, my sweet neighbor came over and asked if he could help with the remaining branches so I asked him to help me pull down the larger back branch by cutting it how I told him so that it would fall a certain way and then I could pull on the rope making it miss the front branch with the nest as those poor birdy parents had been so diligent for three days trying to protect their babies. I wanted to do my best to help them.

By notching a v in the front and by coming down on the back at an angle towards the "V" we were able to get it to fall towards the house and as soon as it started to lean, I had him jump down and come help me pull it away from the house once it had creaked past the branch with the nest in it. Of course I said a few prayers in behalf of the little birds nest. Last year after I killed those babies by removing a nest from above my window, I opened an antique songbook and it opened to a song about not hurting the baby birds. I felt horrible and swore I wouldn't do that again if I could help it.

We were able to do it perfectly and then he helped with the last few branches on the other tree as he had a folding ladder that fit better with a smaller base than the larger ladder I was using so he stayed until the larger branches were down and then Princess Five and I spent hours cutting up the last branches and we had twice as many bundles as we had the first day and I am sure the garbage men hated us this week as we had so many bundles of branches but it was good to get that done. I have a few branches to finish trimming but am super glad that I was able to get that large job done as it has been years since I cut back those trees.

It felt good to get that done even thought it wasn't even on the "to do" list, it was something that needed to be done. I called and rescheduled the new gutters and will share that with you later.

I can't help thinking of Horton Hatching his egg on my tall single branched tree but I smile when I ear the little chirping babies thinking I made someone's day even it is was a bird!

Have a BLESSED Day!