Dangerous trees!

The forester that visited the house back in July recommended I get a professional to fell the half-dozen trees that are near enough the house that, while none are particularly threatening, if things went precisely wrong could potentially hit the house or deck. His reason was that I'm too much of a novice for that, which is only partially true -- I've felled a few trees already that were as hard or harder, and I have a friend with lots of experience who helps with the tough parts. But the other half of his argument was that it would probably only cost $50 to have someone drop a dozen trees and let me do the hard part of limbing and bucking. And for $50, sure, it's worth it to let someone else do the slightly more dangerous part.

$50 seemed too good to be true, and sure enough, the best bid I got was nearer to $150, but even that turned out completely wrong. Seems that insurance costs to do that sort of thing for money have tripled recently, and it's now ridiculously expensive even to do an hour's work in someone else's yard, mostly because of the effect of people doing the same thing in urban and suburban lots where it's far more challenging due to how close together houses are and the prevalence of power lines, sheds, and other collateral damage opportunities.

So I'm back to the original plan of doing it myself, with a few more months slipped by (maybe just as well, I've been too busy anyway). Some of these trees will be easy, some will take some help. I probably won't keep working into November, so we'll see how much I can get done this season, and the trees will wait for me if I don't get them all.