Chainsaws and Chippers Still Familiar Sounds

Four weeks have passed since the Oct. 29 snowstorm that dumped about 16 inches of wet snow in Upper Milford Township. On a drive throughout the area recently, I could still see the signs of what those white flakes can do when they stick together and pile up on trees and bushes.

The weight of the heavy snow downed and uprooted some large, tall trees, which still lay across properties waiting to be cut into pieces. Branches hung from fruit trees and what were once ornamental trees in residents’ yards. Sawdust and wood pieces were strewn along the grass, giving evidence of a once-fallen limb, or possibly a tree.

Volunteers gathered together on a Saturday morning recently to clean up the cemetery at , where large limbs rested on the grass and across tombstones. As men sawed the hanging limbs free from the maple trees, others dragged the downed branches to an area to be cut into smaller pieces.

The usable wood was stacked onto piles to be taken home later and burned in a fireplace. Leaves and twigs were loaded into a cart that was hooked onto to a lawnmower and driven across the street to the yard waste site on Churchview Road. 

The township actually had to close the site because the pile of branches was so big there was no room to put any more. then became the second site for residents to bring their branches from the snowstorm damage. 

And bring them they did…by the truck full. About half of the parking lot was filled with limbs and branches—even small trees—piled more than 10-feet high.

During the week of Nov. 13 township employees chipped the piles and piles of debris left by the heavy snow. First, they worked at the yard waste site on Churchview Road.

When everything was cleaned up there, the chipper was driven to the temporary site on Kohler Road, where they chipped and chipped and chipped some more.  Several people stopped their cars to watch the process of loading the branches into the huge revolving hopper that cut everything into approximately two-inch pieces, sending it up a chute and seeing it fall into piles. 

Trees throughout the township now bear the scars from the ripped-off limbs and branches. Bare and lacking bark in some areas, they will hopefully recover and heal over the winter months.

But, come spring, when the trees’ sap begins to flow into the smallest twig, it may become evident that some of them did not heal, as the life blood of the tree bleeds onto the ground, possibly killing what remains. Then the chainsaw will be heard once again, cutting the remainder of the tree down to the ground.