Visibility was poor at best when pulling out of the driveways at Powell Seed Farm and the house when they were installed over 30 years ago.  With our customers and ourselves being 31 years older, our reflexes and decision making skills have faded a bit over time.  Couple that with increased traffic and much of the traffic is speeding (or on the phone or texting), make this area very dangerous for pulling out onto the highway, especially for slower pullouts, like tractor-trailers, tractors, old farm trucks, and pickups pulling loaded and long trailers.  So Allen and John cut down and pulled out of the way the big pin oak along the road bank.  Allen and Nathan have torn out the old fence and are installing new fence about 12 feet further back from the highway.   Both these should increase visibility of the oncoming traffic from the south on Hwy 5 making it safer to pull out onto the highway.  Let’s hope so.

We hate to cut out trees, but this one is not valuable and has not helped with safety on the highway.  As it turned out, the middle was rotten, so perhaps we just kept this big tree from falling on the highway in the next tornado or high wind!