out on a limb

There are a number of trees that all need to come down before rick can continue to build, mainly because of their proximity to the house site, within 50 meters they are a fire hazard. There is also an ever present danger of blow-down, as most of them are at 30+ meters each and the mountain slope in that area is scree, loose and febrile, there's not a lot to hold onto up there, so you can imagine, felling is a nightmare, nowhere to stand, and nowhere to escape. Additionally, and potentially the most worrying, some of them have signs of an extremely virulent disease called seco, a nementode disease, causing rotting of the trees and their death, which has become prevalent in the hard yellow maritime pines of the region, if not caught and halted it can wipe out all the trees in an entire region. The biggest hurdle with stopping it, is that many of the trees that have it are on land owned by people who are no longer here, the trees get the disease and spread it rapidly, whole sections of mountainside can get blighted very quickly. in the later stages of the disease the timber is barely fit for firewood, and certainly not construction.



Obviously, it was going to be awkward, the road and telephone line behind on the mountainside, the house and the well head to the right, too many other trees blocking an exit to the left, the hen house, olives and our only large cherry tree in-front. The largest of the trees needed sectional felling, it had a large and prominent fork 3/4 of the way up, which was leaning out over the house and down the mountain and there was no chance of getting it all in the tiny space that it was allocated for the drop. It was a real hazard of a tree. We decided to get in Shey, a tree surgeon who was prepared to climb and fell it. He did a great job.