Expert Tree Care for
Chatham-Kent

The Stick in the Ground

I have to preface this by being fully transparent: Ian has always been my best friend. But what amazes me is that 100% of this story is true.

Back when I first purchased my home, we had five 30-foot pine trees in the backyard. They were growing wild, with some large branches (and I mean large) hanging over the fence into the neighbour’s yard.

We knew right when we purchased the home that Ian would be the one to take the trees down. At the time he was still in school, but the one thing I was fully confident in is that he is always willing to take extra caution, and to admit when he isn’t 100% certain he can handle something.

He was easily able to drop the branches without destroying the fence. It took special cuts, and they were so precisely cut that he broke them off with his hands and removed them by hand over top of the fence. I was so impressed that he decided to show off a bit.

He grabbed a stick with one hand, walked out toward my house, squinted an eye, and stuck the stick into the ground. He then said, with full confidence, “The tip of the tree will land here.” I was skeptical, but figured he meant it would fall within a 5-foot area of that stick. He then set up a simple rig and dropped the tree. I was dumbfounded that not only was the tree tip within the 5-foot area I was expecting, the tree tip was lying 2 inches from the stick.

To prove it was not luck, he did this with every single tree in my backyard.

This was over 15 years ago, when he was in forestry school. I was, and frankly still am, amazed that he did this.

The reason I wanted to share this story is to explain some of the skills he has, and more importantly to express that you can trust 100% that Ian is the type of guy who will follow proper procedures to deliver the exact type of service you need.

- Dave Birnie