Tree Cutting

     An aspen tree in the backyard died last summer.  It wouldn’t have been too hard to knock down except that it was about two feet from the fence / property line, and about eight feet from the house.  And about a foot from its bigger neighbor aspen.  Add about two feet to all those dimensions and it will be about right.

      I enlisted Neighbor Brian and in two sessions, we took it down.  I regret that I neglected to take any pictures of the event.  The tree had two main trunks, forking about four feet above the ground.  We took out the first one in an hour or two.

     I crawled up as high as a sixteen-foot ladder would take me and tied a rope to a sturdy branch.  Brian pulled on the rope when the cut was completed and the top fell fairly close to where we wanted it.  It missed the house, but it whacked the fence enough to break off six inches of one slat.

     I tied the rope in two places on the next section, at the top, and right above where I cut next.  When there was only an half inch or so left to cut through, I crawled down the ladder and together we pulled the looped rope.  The thing fell harmlessly in the yard. 

     The rest of the trunk was easily cut into short lengths suitable for the old stove in the farm kitchen.  That was in January, the days were short, and the temperature fell with the sun. 

     It would be nearly a month before we would have another go at it.  This trunk proved to be a bit more of a challenge.  We decided to try to bring it down from the bottom rather than the top.  To control it, we had the rope and about a half dozen come-alongs strapped to it.  One held it to the neighbor tree.  Two tied the tree to posts on the screen porch to keep it out of the neighbor’s yard.   

     The process worked, but it took about three hours to get it down.  After the initial cut, we shoved the trunk over next to the bigger tree beside it.  Every time I cut off a chunk of the bottom, we had to loosen come-alongs and let it down a few feet.  Then we would repeat the process until there was only the smaller chunk from the treetop.

     That was in February.  I hauled the smaller branches to the recycler.  The burnable pieces went to the farm in two small loads.  Aspen doesn’t prove to be much better firewood than Chinese elm.

The "stump" is cut down to ground level, the one closest to the fence.

      

      The second tree stood on the farm.  It once was part of a row of Chinese elms demarking the old board fence separating the corral from the human farmyard.  Corral and fence are long gone.  All but three or four elms have departed as well.  This old feller was the largest of the survivors.  It towered over its brothers and even over shadowed the shop, chimney and all.

     This was also a two-day job.  The chainsaw still had fuel in it from the aspen job.  I had a bit of a struggle to get the chainsaw to run when I was contemplating the aspen job.  I finally put a carburetor kit in it.  I did it reluctantly, because most carburetor jobs I perform result in performance worse than before the overhaul.

    This one worked and after a bit of tuning of jets, the saw ran well.  Conventional wisdom has it that leaving fuel in the carburetor and the lines lead to carburetor failure.  Thus, I needed to get rid of the gas in the tank after the aspen job.  The dead elm was there.  Kill two birds with one stone:  drop a big branch threatening the red barn and get rid of some fuel.

      So I did just that.  It took some moving of junk, mostly old wheels, some with tires still attached.  I also had to trim some smaller elm shoots in order to reach the tree.  A stepladder put me high enough to make the cut.   

      I had misjudged the reach of the branch.  I thought it would miss the red barn.  Most of it did, but some of the upper most branches struck the eaves trough and resulted in a bit of a dent, but the branches were brittle and broke off with contact.  No real damage.

      I used up the rest of the fuel on some old fence posts that make great firewood.  I took great care to locate nails and staples left in the old posts.  I was using a newly sharpened chain.  The fuel ran out and I put the saw away for another week. 

      I was fairly sure I could drop the tree to the west, but I wasn’t in any mood to take a chance.  So I cut off one more east leaning branch.  The difficulty was the direction of the wind.  It blew sawdust into my face as I cut.  No help for it.  To get upwind, I had to be right under the branch I was amputating. 

      With the last east leaning branch gone, I tied the “well” rope to a branch as high as I could reach.  I tied the other end to the old Dodge pickup and took up the slack. 

  Two down, two to go.

      I went to work on the trunk, cutting a “grin” in the direction I wished the thing to fall.  Then from the side opposite the grin, I began the final cut.

    When less than an inch remained to complete the cut, I started the Dodge and put it into low gear.  My plan was to let it idle in gear and tug while I finished the cut.

      But when I eased the Dodge into the load, I heard a crack and the tree fell.  The Dodge edged forward, and the tree fell just where I had directed it.

     Nothing left but to cut the timber into stove lengths and clean up the mess.  The northeast wind blew cooler and cooler.

Firewood sorted and stacked, I wore a sweatshirt and a jacket to unload the smaller branches on the trash pile.

      I will have to split the bigger chunks.  That will be another day’s work.