Meanwhile, back at our money pit...
It's a good thing Hick has been saving money hand over fist in gathering supplies to repair Pony House. We've been pleasantly surprised at some of the bargains Hick has found, and discovering that the back wall did not have to be rebuilt as he had budgeted for. However...
The heating and air conditioning will need replacing. It was an item planned for, but not certain until the heating and cooling man came to give Hick an inspection.
When Hick first got the keys to Pony House, and was doing a walk-through, the next-door neighbor guy came over to meet him. Next-Door Neighbor Guy brought up the big tree that's on the edge of Pony House property. He said limbs fall on his carport roof, and that he'd be willing to give Hick some money towards tree-trimming. Specifically, he would contribute $500.
Hick thought this was a generous neighborly thing to do. After all, a neighbor is not responsible for a tree not on his property. Hick called three tree-trimmers to get estimates. As of last Friday, two had given him a quote.
One wanted $6,000. Yeah. Recharge the defibrillator! That's pretty steep for cutting up a tree! The next guy wanted $4,300. Here's a couple views of that tree, from the first set of Pony House pictures.
Here it is, from the side street, looking at the back of Pony House. It's a good-size tree. A pecan tree. Hangs over Pony House Bedroom 2, and over the Neighbor Guy's carport.
The pecan tree is fairly close to Pony House. Nice and shady, but probably over 100 years old, since the house was built in the 1920s. As I said, Hick had planned on getting it trimmed, even before Next-Door Neighbor Guy offered to contribute.
Well. While Hick was mulling the estimates, and waiting on a different guy to call him back, who supposedly has a lift high enough to trim the top... something else happened.
On Friday, Hick went by Pony House after his Storage Unit Store, and found a LIMB DOWN! On its way, the limb ripped the electric wire off the side of Pony House. Now Hick has to call the electric company and have them shut off power, so he won't get electrocuted when he hooks it back up.
I guess the Next-Door Neighbor Guy is breathing a sigh of relief that it missed his truck and his carport. Hick thinks he might even offer a little bit more when he hears the estimates. Not that he's obligated. I'm still shocked that he's offered to contribute. Bad trees make good neighbors, I guess.
Right now Hick is waiting on the third estimate. He's going to negotiate a bit, because that price is cutting down the whole tree, and removing the wood. Hick only wants the dangerous limbs trimmed. And if he has to, he can get rid of the wood another way.
It's not money we want to spend, but the goal is to make Pony House a SAFE, livable house. Not a palace. But not a death trap, either.
It looks to me as if the tree is doing its own trimming :)
ReplyDeleteIf it was a little smaller, Hick and HOS could probably take care of it themselves, like I did with a very tall shrub in my daughter's front yard. All I had was a pruning saw, a pair of secateurs and a stepladder. I cut off the lowest branches first, then worked my way up as high as I could reach, then sawed through the trunk from the daughter's side not the neighbour's side and as it began to lean I leaned on it to be sure it fell on K's lawn not the neighbours car. Took about five weeks to get all the limbs and the trunk parts sawn up and put into the green waste bin(dumpster). All that's left now is a stump about a metre high which is dead after I painted it with "Roundup". That's a plant poison. Of course all this was years ago when I was younger and fitter.
Oh my gosh! Get over here right now! We'll pay you $500 to do the job, heh, heh. Of course you'll be traveling on your own dime, but we have some lovely little rooms on Shackytown Boulevard where you can stay for free. An outdoor shower, too! I'll even set out a continental breakfast of egg rolls and boxes of spaghetti noodles.
DeleteHick has trimmed trees out here. He has one of those long snipper thingies that my dad gave him, from the years when Dad worked for Bell Telephone, before they became AT&T.
Sadly, Hick knew a guy in town who was trimming a limb in his yard, and it fell on him, and killed him! Not even a big limb. Hit him just right. Or apparently, just wrong.
I could use the $500, but Lola would miss me and I'm currently painful from doing a little itty bit of gardening here. I shifted heavy pots and learned I shouldn't be doing that any more. My aching thighs, tennis elbow and cello-tight hamstrings have been telling me everyday since. I keep forgetting I'm only one birthday away from 70.
DeleteWell, we can't have Lola left alone, in charge of those four little redheads! Hick came home at noon today, all dirty, in a sweated-through shirt. He had spent the morning sawing up and stacking the wood from the fallen limb. I'm pretty sure he will feel the pain tomorrow.
DeleteBeing Hick, he switched to another kind of work for the afternoon, mowing the yard/field. Still work, but less taxing on his riding mower.