He said the tree has to go.

I didn't want to loose another pine tree, but I could see the sense in it.

So in the afternoon we proceeded with it.

I took video.

He lays it down exactly where he intends on putting it.  Between two other pines.

And now we had a big mess.  Branches all over the place.  We started to clean it up. We tossed the pieces we cut up to fit the bucket on the skid steer and Rich hauled it away to a brush pile out back.

The tree was truly too close to the house and if we'd had a bad windstorm he was afraid it would to damage to the roof as it was heavy with branches over the top of the house.

However I did enjoy having coffee in the morning and watching the silly squirrels and birds scamper up and down this tree for the past 20 years.

It looks rather bare right now but I imagine with a new porch near where hubby is standing will fill in some space.
We briefly talked about some shrubs or low lying plants to plant near the house.

His mind wasn't on it.  He was exhausted after that and went to lay down for a bit.
My neighbor came down because he'd heard the chain saw going.

Within minutes he pitched in and helped me stack up the rest of the branches so they could easily be hauled away.
New neighbor!  Talk about being blessed and lucky.

It only took us an hour this morning to clean this up.  The tree trunk is still there.  We will drag it away and hopefully sell it as a nice pine log.

And then Morris and I worked today on cleaning up the small stuff and replanting the hostas that had been at the base of the pine.
They would need a new home and I had just the place for them.

My helper.

This afternoon a couple of trucks pulled into the driveway.  It was our Contractor Kurt and his concrete/digging guys.
They came to look at where they were going to put the basement.

Kurt said he was looking at sometime next week to start digging.
We had a conversation about not having water as they will have to cut the lines and re-attach them.
We also had a conversation about not having electricity.  Hmmm.  

Where they have to dig, the electric and water must be cut off for obvious reasons.

I'm guessing we'll have an interesting time.
Hopefully we won't be without for more than 24 hrs as I will need to find places for my freezer and refrigerated food.  Also we will need to fill stock tanks and add more water to some of our old stock tanks.

It will be an exercise won't it?  So the tree went, the contractors are itching to start and things are looking good in the long range forecast.

Sounds like I best get busy and pack up the rest of the 'stuff' that will need to be moved inside the house.
Yikes, it is almost here!