Illustration by Jerry King

“How much does it cost to cut down a tree?”

Well, that is a “million-dollar question.” To help answer the question, let’s go through a hypothetical scenario.

You have a neighbor, Mr. Beaver, who lives nearby on Spring Lake, which sits behind your home. Now, Mr. Beaver decides to come and fell a tree in your backyard on the edge of the water – absolutely free of charge – so you let Mr. Beaver do his magic, which he is very good at.

After a couple hours of work, there is noticeable progress being made, and a big pile of wood chips starts to appear. You’re ecstatic that you’re getting your tree removed for free.

After an hour or so, Mr. Beaver has decided he’s had enough for the day. His ADHD has kicked in, and he decides to move on to a different project, on Mona Lake, letting you know he’ll be back tomorrow. Well, somehow tomorrow turns into more like three days later. Nevertheless, Mr. Beaver has shown back up to the job site on Spring Lake and continues with the task at hand.

As you settle back and sip a cup of Magnum coffee, watching the undertakings of the day, things seem to be going very well. All of a sudden you hear the creaking of the hinge wood, you see a slight movement in the top of the tree – the excitement is real. Your senses are fully engaged; you cannot take your eyes off the tree in the anticipation of watching it fall. It has captured your full attention (I mean, at this point your toddler could be eating the dog food and you would not notice). You hear a loud crack as the tree is starting to fall.

It’s at this point you realize the tree is headed straight toward the dock and the boat. You let out a shriek (your toddler wonders what’s going on, and starts contemplating their life choices of eating dog food) and watch in horror as the tree first hits the dock, splintering it into toothpicks, then the boat.

The sound of bending metal and the other destruction is echoing through the entire Spring Lake neighborhood. As you watch in horror, the boat slowly starts to take on water, sinking deeper. The tree, the boat and the dock make horrendous moaning and grinding sounds as they finally come to rest at the bottom of Spring Lake, a few pieces of the boat sticking out of the water as a reminder of what used to be.

So the question still remains? How much did it cost to remove the tree?

Jared Baxter is an ISA Certified Arborist and owner of Get-R-Cut.com, a 13-year TCIA member company based in Spring Lake, Michigan.