TIMBER!!!!!

It looks like a fabulous morning to chop down some trees, yes?  Let's play LUMBERJACK!!   But first, we have that trip to California DMV to register my truck and trailer.  

I was NOT looking forward to this.  It's always such a hassle to get anything done, not to mention costly.  I left early, but it wasn't early enough.  It was foggy in the foothills and traffic was pretty slow.  If you've lived here for any length of time, you know it's nowhere NEAR as foggy as it used to be.  I would have taken more pictures, but as you can see, this road is pretty narrow.  

Why would I drive all the way up to Mariposa?  Because the Merced office is full of cranky, unhelpful people who are rude to the moon and back.  It's well worth the pretty drive.

I arrived with an appointment time.  Come to find out, that is California's newest way to stick it to you.  Just because you have an appointment, does NOT mean you will be seen then.  That only gets you in the door with a number at that time.  You still have to wait for everyone in the room to be served BEFORE you.

I got a not-so-helpful lady who gave me two long forms to fill out.  It asked things like what date in 2005 did I buy my truck.  I only remembered the year because it was on my registration!!  FINALLY I got called to a window with a nice young knowledgeable man.  By the way, there are only TWO people in this office.  I filled out the paperwork wrong of course, but he fixed it for me.  NICE!!  

The truck went through pretty well.  No shocker there ... the fees when registered here in 2017 were $400. Now they are $600 because it's a pickup, making it automatically a commercial vehicle.  That's crazy!

Next up the trailer, which was much more problematic.  It has a lender.  I put down the mailing address for my payment, but the paperwork had a different name and address.  The nice kid filled out another form for me.  The good news is THAT registration fee was $200 cheaper than Arizona.  WOW!!

The bad news (there is always bad news) is I now have to get the truck smogged and BOTH verified by the California Highway Patrol.  They said just call and they would come to my house. Yeah right!!!!  I doubt THAT is going to happen.  And so 90 minutes later (yup it took that long) I was out the door and racing down the hill.

It's TIMBER TIME!!  I have four of these sycamore trees on my property that I and everyone else, dislike immensely.  They grow all wonky, have a million leaves they drop everywhere and suck up water like a sponge.  

Now you see them .....

Now you don't!  

I have to say this Cen Cal Tree Service is the best group of guys I've ever worked with.  They are amazingly fast, never take breaks, and they clean up slick as a whistle.

He climbs the tree with a small chainsaw hanging off his waist.  I need that chainsaw!!  As he drops branches the two guys on the bottom slide them into the noisiest machine on the planet.  

He's all the way to the top now, his climbing boots stuck into the smallest of branches.  

Once all the limbs are off, he starts back down taking off two foot sections.

They take it right down to the ground before beginning the grind.

It's just hard to believe that machine can eat up these big stumps like they are a two inch twig.  Everything goes into the grinder and winds up sawdust in the back of the truck.

Next up ... grind out the stumps.  These guys went above and beyond.  The tree roots are huge and spread out almost on top of the ground for ten or twenty feet.  We thought they might have broken a sprinkler, but dug around it by hand and pulled out every root they could find.  

To top it off, I didn't ask Robert to take out the second tree until they were half done with the first.  He said no problem, and even let me tell HIM what I would pay, because as you know, I'm the cheap accountant type.  I have two more of these horrible trees on the property, but they do add a little bit to the ambience of the house.  He's going to come back and trim them up pretty next month!  

It was a long day .... I'm going to go rest up now!!!  BECAUSE IT'S BINGO TIME!!!!