We continue to plug along with the preliminary clearing of decades of over growth 

that surrounds The Bungalow.

It won't be much longer and we'll start digging in to the house itself.

I can't wait.

Last I posted, I reported that Taylor had come to start cutting the Ailanthus down.

Taylor was able to get two of the big branches off on the South side of the tree, but then had to go to work a shift at the hospital, so he packed up for the day. Well, if you know Mr Mossi then you know that he cannot let something go undone. It drives the man nuts. Besides, he loves a challenge and talked me into helping him. So, on Monday we tied the end of a rope onto one of the three remaining branches and then tied the other end to the hitch on the truck. I moved the truck parallel to the south fence and way behind the house til the rope was taut. While up in the tree, he cut the notch in the first of the three remaining branches with the chainsaw. 
Then all it took was a good yank with the truck 
aaaannnd...

that big ol' branch came crashing down right on top of the garage roof !
It gashed a hole about  eight inches in diameter. 
 I guess I haven't mentioned that there are power lines right next 
to this tree that are attached to the house?
 It actually ran through the tips of  the branches in some places.
That is why we were trying to pull those big branches with the truck - 
to keep them from falling into those lines attached to the house. 
The hole in the roof is not big deal since the whole garage is coming off. 
The important thing was that the power lines were not disturbed. 
I guess I also forgot to mention that we had the power company come out to 
take the lines down so when Taylor came to cut they wouldn't be an issue. 
The power company said there was NO WAY they were gonna take those lines down 
and put them BACK  because the connection was original to 1955 and they are in really bad shape. 
We were told we'd have to replace the weather-head before they'd reattach to the house. 
Well, that'll be part of the renovation and we didn't want to invest in it just yet.
Dean doesn't let much get in the way of what he wants to get done, 
so he figured he'd find a way to get that tree down; power lines or no power lines. 
You bet I was prayin' and prayin' hard.

The branch was much too heavy to move off the roof, so he just got up there to cut it up. 
He threw the cuttings down and I hauled 'em to the dumpsta.
Team work!
That's the only way we're gonna pull this whole, crazy undertaking off.
It got late, so we called it a day. 
We decided to wait til the weekend to tackle the rest of the beast.

The following Saturday Taylor wasn't able to come out to the house, so Joe and Tan came over to help. 
Using a refined version of the yank-it-with-the-truck method, 
they took the last two beastly sized branches down. 
This time the branches landed on the ground where they were supposed to 
and the power lines stayed untouched. 
AWESOME.
These boys had a blast working together and were pretty derned proud of themselves.

Taylor heard that Team Mossi had taken most of the tree down on Saturday, 
so he came back a few days later to take the top off the trunk. 
This is all there is left of it. 
When we get a backhoe in here to start excavation for the garage, we'll pull the remaining stump.

Here's a "before" picture of the tree.