Timber!!

While my brother was here for Christmas, he and Josh tackled the task of taking down this 50-foot pine tree next to our house.  It was our biggest and most beautiful pine tree, but there was a problem...

Before

The tree was leaning on our house!  We hated to take it down, but it really needed to be done.

So we rented this fun little lift to help get the job done.  Here's Josh seeing just how high it will go.

The guys worked from the roof for a while and removed all the lower branches.  Then it was time to high!

Josh in the lift, Adam supervising

Adam in the lift, Josh supervising

Adam trimming off some high branches

Working hard!

Time to get the pole saw out

At this point, the guys decided to start taking out sections of the trunk.  Josh cut out notches on the side of the tree away from the house.  Then he made a deep cut that nearly connected to that notch from the opposite side.  Adam was on the tractor and pulled down the sections with a rope to insure they fell AWAY from the house.  This was a pretty scary part of the process, but everything went really well and there were no injuries to the house or the guys!

Josh cutting the trunk.  The tree is tied to the tractor and Adam is ready to pull!

Top section gone!

Nothing but trunk left now.

Nearly done!

This is where we stopped for now.

After

Don't worry.  We still have some nice tall trees nearby.

Cutting the trunk into smaller pieces

Titus supervising the clean up efforts.

We made a fire ring and we've got lots of firewood for the future too!

Here are videos of the top 2 sections coming down.  It was pretty exciting for us!

When the guys were done with the lift, I took a ride to the top and snapped some pictures.  So here's a look at what is around our property.

Looking south

Looking southeast

Looking southwest- you can see our walking trail on the right side

Looking west

Then my camera battery died and we had to take the lift back to town. 
The guys did such a great job- I was seriously impressed!