The big oak tree that fell on the deck during Hurricane Sandy is gone. It took the tree crew less than eight hours to complete their work. First, Steve, the tree climber, went up on a branch that was leaning against the roof and attached a thick strap to the branch. Then the crane operator lowered the hook to the strap. Steve then, with no other support, balanced himself with one hand holding the strap and, with a very sharp hand saw, began pruning away smaller limbs.

A third member of the crew coordinated hand signals between Steve and the crane operator. With the delicacy of surgery, the three lifted each branch away from the house, managing to avoid inflicting further damage to the structure.
The crane -- called a knuckle crane -- has a boom that extends hydraulically and that is hinged like a finger. It can lift a maximum of about 11,000 pounds, if I recall what Steve told me. Extended its full length, the boom can handle around 1,000 pounds. So, when they got to the larger pieces of the trunk, Steve estimated a length whose weight would fall within the appropriate range and then sliced that segment from the rest of the trunk.
Steve, who's been a tree man for about eight years, said he grew up in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, where, when his parents would tell him to go outside and play, he would climb trees, build tree forts, fall from trees and climb them again. He said he found someone dumb enough to pay him to climb trees, and he feels he has the best job in the world.
I have to admit his work was appealing to an old tree climber. At a point when there was still about 10 feet of trunk left on the roots, Steve posed beside the cross-section of the trunk to help illustrate the size of the old pin oak.

Steve and the crew left me with some of the wood. Most of it is going to a neighbor who needs firewood. A couple of pieces were taken by a friend who turns wood into bowls. He offered to make a bowl for us as a souvenir of Sandy.
I'll think of it as a reminder of a noble, old tree.