The Three Stooges Landscaping Company (Argh!)

Last June some of you might recall me doing an article about the fact that we had two (more!) of our trees get struck by lightning one night during a pretty bad thunderstorm.  We were pretty certain that one of them would die as it was the one that was mainly struck by the lightning.  The lightning bounced off that first tree and hit the second tree, which was much, much bigger than the first one, so we thought it might survive.  Alas, the both of them died.  We now had two dead trees, one of them quite large, very near out house that needed to be cut down.  We had decided to use some of our tax refund to get them cut down and hauled off.  Enter "The Three Stooges Landscaping Company".  No, that's not really their name, but after you see the photos of what they did and hear the story you will instantly see the similarities.

We've been getting a lot of storms and rain here in our part of the South the past month or so, and unlike where I'm from up North (West Virginia) rain and water do not just drain off and go away.  Water pretty much just sits there until it finally dries up or seeps into the ground.  Our ground is currently so waterlogged that there's no where for it to go.  That being said it's of no surprise that our yard was pretty wet.  The man who runs "The Three Stooges Landscaping Company" and who was making plans to come out and cut down our trees had been here twice already and viewed the area where the trees are and the surrounding yard and field.  He had actually been here two days previous to Friday when they showed up to cut down the tree, so he knew what conditions were like, I might add.

When the workers arrived the first thing they did was to proceed to drive a truck pulling a big cart to load stuff in directly through our yard at the wettest spot there was, actually the only wet spot as the water elsewhere had dried up.  Needless to say, the truck got hung up and left big long trenches through the yard.  The truck and cart sit in our yard while they walk aimlessly around the yard, the fields around us, and the trees to see where they can come in to the trees at in order to haul them off after they cut them down.

Next they brought up this small piece of John Deere equipment (similar to the photo below which is NOT my photo but comes from Google in attempts to show you what exactly I'm talking about) which they proceed to use to pull the truck and cart out of our yard with.  They back it across the yard and over our driveway and right into the soggy field beside our house.  Yes, you guessed it; it got hung up!  Now they back this enormous log truck down our driveway and use it to pull the John Deere thing out of the field, thus leaving big craters in the field and the edge of our yard.

After demolishing our yard and everything in sight they tell us that they cannot haul the trees off, because it's too wet.  They can cut them down for us if we want them to.  Friends of ours had offered to cut them down for free.  We were pretty much paying these guys to haul them off in addition to cutting them down.  Cutting them down was not the problem.  Getting rid of them once they were cut was for us the hard part.  We declined the offer.  The head stooge then offered to cut them down and burn them.  We declined that too.  After that "The Three Stooge Landscaping Company" packed up, jumped on the John Deere thing and waved as they drove down our driveway.  They offered to come back when the ground has dried up, but I think we'll try to find someone else.

Okay, this machine is similar to the thing they got hung up in the field beside our house while using it to pull the truck and cart out of the yard.  Again, this is NOT my image!!

Here are pictures of the places they made in our front yard.  These will be hard to fix.  They're very deep and big.  They look terrible.  And yes I well aware our yard and grass really suck right now.  The grass is finally starting to turn green in places for spring and summer.

Here's where they got hung up in the field beside our house while pulling the truck and cart out.