On Tue, 06 Nov 2018 09:17:28 -0500, Gary > wrote:

wrote:
>>
>> Maple tree in my front yard:
>> https://postimg.cc/ftkDC2MY
>
>Very nice. How old is that or was it there when you bought the
>place?

That tree was planted by the first owners, some 55 years ago.

>That's a nice climbing tree for the young grandkids.

It's really not good for climbing, it's thickly branched with many
small branches that I have to pick up periodically. The lower
branches are expertly pruned by deer.
It's not a good idea to allow anyone but expert tree climbers to climb
trees, too easy to have terrible mishaps.

In fact when I looked out this morning there was a fifty foot Norway
spruce that fell from the wind and rain, right over my creek out
front. Time to call our tree guy to remove it, will probably have
him remove the other five. He removed one that fell about five years
ago. Best to be rid of all as the rest will fall soon, they are too
big and old, and will cost a lot less to have then all removed at one
trip. The original owner planted those too, only he didn't know that
spruce trees don't like wet roots, should never have planted them next
to a creek.

It's been raining heavily here and strong winds every day for more
than a week, I forgot what the sun looks like. I'm very glad I had
all the large trees that were planted close to the house removed, and
this year had much larger rain gutters and down spouts installed. The
last owner likely installed the old ones himself, but they were made
of plastic not seamless so they leaked at every 8', and way too small
to carry all the water from this very large roof (40' X 70'), in heavy
rain they over flowed and those soda straw down spouts didn't come
close to handling all that water. The new gutters and downspouts are
properly sized, they handle the water easily.