TIMBER!!

We took down the pine tree yesterday! I would like to say a special thank you to Auntie and Uncle Stan for letting us use their chain saw and for helping out so much with the planning, supervising, and cleaning up. Thank you, we really appreciate it!! Thank you also to Nels and the Harris clan that came out to help.


Here is the before picture. Adam climbed up and tied a rope around the pine as high as he could go (about 30-40 feet).


Adam tied the other end of the rope to his new Dodge Ram. This was the first real test for his 6,000 pound truck. Believe me, it was plenty powerful!


Then, Brian cut off a lower branch of the oak that was in the fall path of the pine.


Now comes the wedge cut. In order to make a tree fall in the direction you want, you have to cut out a wedge on the side of the tree where you want it to fall. Then, you cut through the opposite side of the tree, angled downward, to the end of your wedge cut. Tying the rope to the truck also encourages the tree to fall in the right direction. Brian was at the chain saw and Adam was in the truck. We got the blade caught in the tree once and the rope snapped on us twice . . . but then we got it . . .


TIMBER!! The pine came down in the direction we wanted and no one got hurt - Hooray!


Adam celebrates by showing his authority over the pine with his truck. After we got it to the ground, we measured the height of the tree at 90 feet - that's pretty stinkin tall!


Then, Brian cut up the rest of the tree in smaller peices and we put them in a pile to haul off. There was a small mishap with the chainsaw, so we're going to finish cutting the tree later. Here's our final pile.


This is the new look of the 3 oaks. We plan on deadwooding them this spring and hopefully they'll be around a long time. Deadwooding is when you remove the dead branches from the tree to help it's health.


This is a close up of the scar on the oak where the pine tree was touching it. I hope it's not infected, that's a pretty important limb. But, all in all, we successfully got the pine to the ground and it only cost $20 for the rope. I'd say, a job well done. Stay tuned for more adventures. We should submit for permit by the end of this week.