I passed on two Sweet Gum trees recently dropped in my neighborhood, based upon your input if you read my last post from last night. Those sound like a nightmare to split without hydraulics. My buddy who had a wood splitter died last month, and I just don't have the heart to ask his wife or sons if I can borrow his wood splitter any more.
After a 2 hour delay from a flat tire in my car, I got started cutting at the late time of 2:30 PM. Instead I went for the original plan to cut down a standing dead Douglas Fir. I estimated it at 100' tall, but after falling the tree, it was more like 75' tall. It was a bit windy, with the wind going in the direction of the fall, which was a great plus. While falling, the tree made a counter clockwise spin on the stump, and fell about 15 degrees farther to the right then planned. I was trying to fall it to the left of a larger Douglas Fir, but it managed to fall to the right of it. Of course, it got caught in a Big Leaf Maple tree. I had to drag the stump backward about 20 feet with my truck and chains before it came free of the maple tree. You can see the mud tracks the stump made in the second picture.
Picture one is the standing dead tree before falling.
Picture two is the tree bucked. Notice where my chainsaw is, that's the original location of the standing tree, and you can see the distance I drug the stump before the tree finally loosened out of the maple tree and fell.
Picture three is a live Douglas Fir tree about 60' tall I fell. I'm gradually thinning my friends overgrown Christmas trees, to allow for better tree growth and health of the remaining trees.
Picture four didn't happen, because the batteries in the camera died. I would have taken a picture of another overgrown Christmas tree I fell. This tree had the top break off at some time in the past, so the tree was about 10' shorter than it should have been.
It was getting dark, and quit about 5 PM, so I didn't have time to gather the wood. I'll get it at another time, possibly this Monday if the weather cooperates. We have some snow in the forecast here in western Oregon.
After a 2 hour delay from a flat tire in my car, I got started cutting at the late time of 2:30 PM. Instead I went for the original plan to cut down a standing dead Douglas Fir. I estimated it at 100' tall, but after falling the tree, it was more like 75' tall. It was a bit windy, with the wind going in the direction of the fall, which was a great plus. While falling, the tree made a counter clockwise spin on the stump, and fell about 15 degrees farther to the right then planned. I was trying to fall it to the left of a larger Douglas Fir, but it managed to fall to the right of it. Of course, it got caught in a Big Leaf Maple tree. I had to drag the stump backward about 20 feet with my truck and chains before it came free of the maple tree. You can see the mud tracks the stump made in the second picture.
Picture one is the standing dead tree before falling.
Picture two is the tree bucked. Notice where my chainsaw is, that's the original location of the standing tree, and you can see the distance I drug the stump before the tree finally loosened out of the maple tree and fell.
Picture three is a live Douglas Fir tree about 60' tall I fell. I'm gradually thinning my friends overgrown Christmas trees, to allow for better tree growth and health of the remaining trees.
Picture four didn't happen, because the batteries in the camera died. I would have taken a picture of another overgrown Christmas tree I fell. This tree had the top break off at some time in the past, so the tree was about 10' shorter than it should have been.
It was getting dark, and quit about 5 PM, so I didn't have time to gather the wood. I'll get it at another time, possibly this Monday if the weather cooperates. We have some snow in the forecast here in western Oregon.