Well, it's a start! The young guy in all the PPE is Trevor, who lives down the street and has all kinds of hand-carved yard art made from sections of trees for sale. We stopped and talked to him about carving what's left of the cottonwood tree some time back while we were out walking Pebbles. He said he'd never done a whole tree before, and was looking for one to do, so he'd be willing to come by, look at it, and give us a quote.
He was supposed to go to carving contest using a felled tree early this year, but then The Virus hit, and they cancelled the competition. So he's using this to get his feet wet in the "Whole Tree" category, and we'll be getting a LOT more work done, at a rock-bottom price, as this will be one of his portfolio pieces. He's done some amazing work, and I'll have to go take some pictures at his place after he's done with this one.
He's also going to make a nice, flat, vertical section to bolt the antenna support back to the trunk, and since it will be mounted solidly into the trunk, I'll be adding another 5' section of mast to get the center up to slightly over 30' AGL. I'll also raise the end points another 5', which will be about as good as it's going to get for the wire antenna.
Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, we have.....
CUPCAKES!
And TLG is quite proud of his decorating abilities.
Well done, young man!
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The eagle looks cool. Love it.
ReplyDeleteAnd TLG, like a couple of our great grand kids about the same age are all smiles when doing stuff like that.
He loves helping in the kitchen, basement, and garage. He's gotten over the fact that he can (and I allow) open the drawers on my toolboxes. Now he concentrates on all those funny looking things in the drawers, and we play many happy rounds of "What's THIS?".....
DeleteLooking forward to pictures!
ReplyDeleteShould be plenty on the way!
DeleteNice bird.
ReplyDeleteNice kid.
Nice cupcakes.
Nice... snowblower? Blower? Blower?..
Bueller? Bueller??
DeleteIt is a nice bird. Had me fooled. 😛
ReplyDeleteTLG is a good looking little man. 🙂
God bless you all, drjim.
He said it's first Bald Eagle he's done. It looked pretty scrawny yesterday, but he cleaned it all up today, and added a lot of embellishments on the top of the trunk. I'll get some pictures from the upstairs. You can look right down on it from the guest bedroom.
DeleteThat sure is a neat way to handle a dead tree. It is both art and antenna support.
ReplyDeleteLooks like great fun with TLG. I can appreciate that though the ones here are a few years older. My eldest grandson near me took a 9-point whitetail buck last week (his was father supervising). Gosh, they grow up fast and ask all sorts of questions.
We knew the tree would have to come down when we bought the house. Cottonwood trees tend to live 40~60 years here, and then die and fall over. NOT a good thing to have a 65' tall tree come crashing down on the house! The person who we first contacted (who our guy knows) sent us a couple of simple sketches with a "You're Kidding" price. She's extremely good, way overbooked, and has several people working for her, so she may not even do the work.
DeleteOur neighbor guy is doing it all for $600, about one-quarter of what she quoted us.
It looks to be amazing when finished.
ReplyDeleteWhat a cutie TLG is! Enjoy the moment, they grow up so fast.
It's getting more and more detailed as he works on it. I think he's about finished with the eagle as he's started on one of the other limbs.
DeleteTLG is sleeping with Grandma right now. I spied a bag of Nestle "Toll House" pieces on the kitchen counter, so I suspect we'll have COOKIES today!
Yay for the tree carving! And TLG obviously didn't 'do' the decorating, he's not wearing half the chocolate...LOL
ReplyDeleteGrandma did the frosting, and TLG put on the sprinkles.
DeleteWhat great Tree Art! And good on TLG. Nice.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
It was either debark it, carve it, and seal it (boiled linseed oil) or completely remove it. We had a major mushroom infestation at ground level this summer, and it took a couple of gallons of vinegar to get rid of them all.
DeleteThe arborist who came to trim the other trees also noted a Carpenter Bee/Digging Wasp nest getting started, so we soaked it with insecticide to rout them out.