Update to thread
Good evening everyone,
Here is an update. I did get another estimate - a day rate for 2 guys for $2600 - they would take down the 4 trees in question - plus two others and some trimming. I waited a bit to get the tax money back but then was thinking about waiting until next winter to get a better price - as the last company that gave the estimate told me I missed a significant discount as spring was here and their business had started to pick up.
Anyway, I did what a number of people would consider stupid and borrowed a bigger ladder and did some trimming of an oak, a maple and a couple of beech trees. Used the little Craftsman (Poulan 2000) that I took the baffle out of the muffler, replaced the fuel lines and fuel pick up assembly and adjusted the carb (thanks to this site).
While I was gathering up the brush from cleaning up some of the low-hanging limbs - the original guy that gave me the first estimate and then I didn't hear back for a while stopped by. He offered to throw the brush through his chipper and asked if I wanted to still cut down the trees. I told him that we would have to talk about it, and continued cutting the brush up and putting it on a burn pile.
This guy did stop by later. He was finishing another job and had a bucket truck with him. He watched me cut down another limb off of the ladder. We discussed the job - that I wanted the 4 trees down in the back yard. He called his partner down, who is the climber and they agreed to do the 4 trees for $1000. They will take down the trees - chip up the brush and leave me to cut up the larger limbs and trunk. I also asked for their recommendation on the other trees - and they were pretty conservative in what they recommended as far as trimming limbs from the other trees. If all goes well with this - then I will talk to them next fall about doing some selective trimming.
They took down the first tree this afternoon and took the brush. They did a lot more cutting up of the trunk than I expected, which was nice of them and unexpected. I went out there and cut the rest of the tree and started hauling it to the woodpile. Looking forward to the 3 other trees going down.
It was nice to get a chance to use the new chainsaw. I have put about 5 tanks of gas through it so far, and although the MS290 has its detractors, it seems plenty powerful enough for me - seems to run a little better too the more I have been using it. Looking to get a couple of replacement chains from one of the sponsors. I only have one for each saw, and I did dull the MS290's chain pretty good cutting a stump flush (cut down a friend's tree), but got it back with the file so that it is throwing chips again.