Job Stories — Homestead Heroes

Tree removal · Land clearing · Parking pad

The biggest tree I have ever taken down was leaning at a man’s barn.

Robert “Bob” Jankunas — Dover-Foxcroft, Maine · August–September 2026

Bob called because he wanted to extend his parking lot. Before any of that could happen, there were trees standing between where the gravel needed to go and where it could actually be put — and several of them were leaning toward the barn.

One of them was the largest tree I have taken down in thirty years in the trades. When the stump was cut flat we put a tape across the face. It read seventy-two inches. Six feet, corner to corner, on a tape, in daylight. I have been around big wood my whole working life and I had not had one like that.

A large pine with a face cut in it, the barn behind — The face cut in, and the barn sitting right there behind it.

A tape measure laid across the cut stump reading seventy-two inches — Seventy-two inches across the face. That is the whole story in one frame.

Bucking the felled trunk into lengths with a chainsaw — Down safe, and bucked into lengths where it lay.

A tree that size does not simply come down. It comes down where you decide it comes down, or it takes a building with it. That is the part people do not see on an invoice — the hour spent reading the lean, the escape route cleared before the saw starts, the excavator set where it can push if it has to.

Three days of tree work — two men on the ground, the excavator, and the cleanup — cost Bob nothing. We took the timber in trade. That is close to four thousand dollars of work, settled with a handshake and a load of wood.

Then the part nobody photographs: getting it all off the property. It was a complete mess when the trees came down, and we hauled every bit of it off. Logs onto the flatbed, brush cleaned up, nothing buried on site to sink later and leave him with a hole in his new lot.

Grapple loading logs onto a flatbed trailer — Loaded out by the grapple, not left in a pile to rot.

The excavator carrying a large log past the building — One log at a time, past the building, out to the road.

The excavator pulling a root ball out of the ground — Stumps out whole. Root balls hauled off, not buried.

With the ground open we scratched the surface down a foot to get under the organics, because gravel laid on top of topsoil and roots turns into ruts by the second spring. Then we built it back up: three and a half feet of aggregate — a riprap base for strength and drainage, inch-minus over it in compacted lifts, and a finish skim graded smooth to shed water.

72″

Across the stump face

161 yards

Aggregate brought in

3.5 ft

Built up from subgrade

For the tree work

Two men standing on a single stump, showing its size — Two men standing on one stump. No caption needed.

Mulching head grinding the stump flat, the building behind — Ground flat, so the lot runs right over where it stood.

A crew member with a chainsaw beside the cut stump — Three days on the ground with a saw in his hands.

Same ground, two weeks apart

Before: the standing tree blocking the view to the barn — **Before.** You could not see past it.

After: the stump in the foreground and the finished parking lot beyond — **After.** The stump is at your boots and the lot runs to the treeline.

The shed goes in next, on the spot where the biggest tree in thirty years used to stand.

The finished parking lot running down toward the woods — How far it actually runs, which the other pictures undersell.

Boulders and ledge set along the edge of the new lot — The edge, set with the stone that came out of the ground.

The finished grade meeting the side of the building — Graded tight to the building, pitched to drain away from it.

Septic · Land clearing · Landscape restoration

We came to install a septic system. We left having rebuilt the whole property.

Peace, Love & Waffles — 1282 Bangor Rd, Dover-Foxcroft · go eat there

Four miles up the road from us is a restaurant we all know. They needed a brand-new septic system, and that is what we showed up to do.

But you could not help noticing the rest of it. The landscaping had gone completely over. Apple trees were hanging down to the ground. The whole area out back where people used to sit at the picnic tables was swallowed. The rock walkways were so grown over that you could not see they were there at all.

So we cleared the septic area, and then I asked the owner a question: would he let me have free rein on the entire property. He said yes.

And we did not bill him for it. We traded the whole job for marketing inside his restaurant — which is how his customers ended up holding our flyer.

Apple trees pruned back up off the ground. The back seating area opened up so the picnic tables make sense again. Every rock walkway found, cleared and put back into use. A new septic system underneath it all.

Two more things went in while we were there. We trucked in a small white tiny house on a gooseneck trailer and set it with the track loader — so if you need a building moved, that is a thing we do. And we picked up their VW bus, the one with the sign on it, and put it on a proper new pad. Flower boxes go around it next.

The side of the barns — graded bare, then seeded and done. Drag across.

Before: bare graded ground beside the barns

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BeforeAfter

Drag the handle — or tap and use the arrow keys

The orchard was the part you could not see past. Apple branches were sitting on the ground and the picnic tables had disappeared into the grass. Now there is a gravel path running through it that people can actually walk.

The orchard and the seating area, before and after.