Remains of the Tree

So the new job is taking more out of me than I'd hoped.  While it's not as physically tiring as my old job, there has been a lot to get my head around.  It was in the course of writing - or rather trying to write - a letter to apply to keep the job permanent that I came to the sad realization that my creative well is rather dry.  And it is because of that creative drought that I'm avoiding my blog.  Well that and the 3 kids still at home who keep me incredibly busy when I'm home.  I've had no less than 4 interruptions from them in the time it has taken me to write this paragraph.  (5 if you count the last 45 minutes that I've spent putting kids to bed after I wrote the next two sentences.)

But for whatever reason I have not been feeling the creativity.  And since I've tried just about everything else to get the juices flowing - even threatening my muse, Sheldon, with all manner of harm - the next thing is good old fashioned force.  If it's good enough for Sparky, as in he will sit for 2 hours and do homework and I don't care that you don't have any this is what you get when you bring home a 'D' in effort, it's good enough for me.

So wanna see some pictures of my gum tree?  Or what's left of my gum tree?

This isn't the actual tree, but another very similar one in terms of size that is nearby on my property.

Limb carnage.  These escaped the fate of the other, larger, limbs.

A fungus among us.  An example of the growth overtaking the gum tree, making it a danger to, well, everything.

Stumpy!  

You can see the fungal rot setting in within the deeper layers of the tree.  There's a reason they call these trees 'window makers'.

All that's left of the tree.  At least we're putting it to good use in the garden.

I have two acres of land on which my house sits.  Up the front was a gum tree that had a nasty case of... well, gum fungus.  Damn if I know what it's called.  Now I have other trees that aren't in great shape - there's one or two ironbarks that show clear evidence of termite nests, for example.  However I leave those alone as they are right up front and pose no danger to anyone.  My fungus-y gum, however, was on a slope that were it to decide to keel over would do so right onto my neighbour's car port.  Since they were good enough to remove a dangerous tree that was threatening to drop it's dodgy limb onto our kid's playhouse, it was only fair of us to save up and take away this bad boy.

I've been trying for months to get it gone but it's been so damn wet that it just wasn't possible.  Then we hit a dry patch and several weeks ago the guys turned up to take it down.  Too bad the cherry picker didn't.  Take two was today and it's now gone, with only a pile of mulch and a smaller bank balance to show for it.  But I can rest easier on windy days, especially given our tree guy said it was only a question of "when", not "if", it was coming down.

When was the last time a Yank had to remove a gum tree?  Just another day in Oz...