Stump Grinding in Ferndale, CA

Ferndale is a Victorian village on the Eel River delta, and its trees tell that story: big Monterey cypress and eucalyptus planted as windbreaks around the dairies a century ago, mature ornamentals behind the picket fences on the side streets off Main, and the dark line of Russ Park's spruce and redwood rising behind town. Almost everything here is old, tall, and standing in wind.

How stump grinding goes in Ferndale

Ferndale is a Victorian village on tight in-town lots surrounded by dairies and ranch lanes, so one week we are roping limbs over a picket fence and the next we are taking down a windbreak tree beside a barn. That is the first question on a Ferndale stump call: which machine fits. The gate-sized grinder handles most in-town stumps; the big one handles pasture and windbreak stumps. Then it is a matter of diameter, and the cheapest stump is the one done the same day as the removal.

Pacific wind comes ashore at Centerville and crosses the Eel River bottoms with nothing to slow it, and the century-old cypress and eucalyptus rows have been holding it for decades. The dominant Ferndale hazard is an aging windbreak tree, a huge Monterey cypress or blue gum eucalyptus, failing next to a house, a barn, or a road. Ferndale is on the Fortuna crew's regular loop, a short drive across the river, so the quote and the job both happen fast.

When Ferndale homeowners call for stump grinding

• A stump in the lawn, the fence line, or two feet from the patio where it is in the way of everything.
• Old stumps from a tree somebody else took down years ago near Main Street.
• A fence, footing, or replacement tree going in exactly where the stump is.
• A mass of young trunks growing out of an old Monterey cypress stump.

Delta soil stays soft most of the winter, so big removals on the bottoms are planned for firm-soil months whenever the tree allows it. Eucalyptus bark and cypress deadwood around the old farmsteads are the main fuel concern, and clearing them protects wooden barns as much as homes.

Working in Ferndale

The wind is the thing. Storms come off the Pacific at Centerville, cross the bottoms with nothing to slow them, and lean on the cypress rows and tall eucalyptus that have been holding that wind for decades. When one of those trees starts to fail, it is usually a big one, and it is usually close to a barn, a house, or a road. We take those down in pieces, and we thin and reduce the ones that still have good years in them.

Around Ferndale that means Main Street, Russ Park, Wildcat Road, Centerville, and the properties between. Pacific wind across the Eel River bottoms, century-old windbreak rows, and historic homes on tight village lots.