Speaking of grinding, the folks across the creek have been taking down an enormous Eucalyptus for months now. First the branches disappeared, as they cut them off and lowered them to the ground with ropes looped over higher branches.
Then they stopped for several weeks, while they tried to figure out how to cut off the top of the tree and lower it to the ground with nothing above it to loop a rope around. Eventually they cut it off in 6-10' lengths and just let them *THUD!!!* to the ground.
Then they got down to only about 30' of the trunk left, but it was so big around they didn't seem to have a way to cut it. After a couple weeks, they seem to have figured THAT out and I came home to find a 15' length of trunk, that was 6' to 8' in diameter, in the creek (which is a trickle this time of year).
Then they spent one Saturday cutting that apart with chainsaws into carryable pieces, maybe 2' x 2', and carrying those to the dumpster out front. Then they stopped, while they tried to figure out how to get rid of an 8' tall stump, 8' in diameter.
So today, they're out there with the two chainsaws again, cutting the stump into chunks to carry to the street. The sound is like.... Well, imagine if you were riding a 125cc dirtbike, with no muffler, on a freeway, at a more or less constant speed, for a couple hours. As much fun as all that.
