The Secret Lives of Tree Cutters

Our house backs up into a lightly wooded area with a few branches of trees hovering over our deck or roof. Of course, we knew late last year that we needed to do something about it (between cutting away the branches or cutting down the tree) and my husband and I managed to agree that the we should just cut down the tree, to a stump, so we'll never have to worry about overhanging branches again.

So now that spring is approaching, it's time to call in the professionals and get some estimates on what it would take to cut down this huge tree - in order to rid ourselves of tree collapse worries and acorn headaches.

My husband made a few calls to obtain estimates earlier this week, on Tuesday. So far, we've only heard back from one....and the way we heard back from them was via a sealed envelope stuck in our front door. As I was leaving this morning, I opened the front door to have a small envelope drop at my feet. When I opened it, it was one of the estimates with barely legible handwriting...but funny, the dollar amount was quite clear. No phone calls, no acknowledgements...just the sealed envelope. I'm suspecting that the others will trickle in this way as well.

My mother had a lot to say about getting estimates - like how we should've done this before (in the winter) and now that it's warmer, these tree cutters are going to be busy and as the leaves grow in, the estimates will go up. Well, you know, as a first time home owner, it's not like I would know this off the top of my head...plus I've been busy. I don't see a lot of tree cutters out in the winter - probably due to the weather. Besides, I assume it's their down time to a very hectic spring, summer and fall. Wouldn't this be their time to head off to train for the lumberjack/lumberjill competitions that go on all over the country?

Well - I don't know what the big secret is and I'm certainly not going to wait until they come back to me - I think it's time to get more proactive.