WESTERN TREE SERVICE

About WESTERN TREE SERVICE

When the winter storms come in off the Pacific and funnel up the Santa Ynez Valley, every big tree around Solvang gets tested. WESTERN TREE SERVICE spends the rest of the year preparing them for it — thinning heavy canopies, removing dead limbs before the wind can claim them, and taking down what cannot be saved. The valley's oaks, pines, and eucalyptus each ask for different judgment, and climbing them is a trade learned rope by rope. After the saws go quiet, the cleanup is total: wood hauled, brush chipped, stumps ground, the ground left ready for whatever grows next. It is tall, weather-facing work, done so the village under the trees can stop thinking about them.