Another series of tree murdering pictures. This one was a large ash that had lost it's main trunk in a storm years ago, probably the Ice Storm of '98, and which was well and truly blocking the light to about 1/4 acre of potential grazing. But all twisted and with hung-up dead branches, it wasn't going to go easy.
I notched it and put a rope on it with the hand winch -- called a "come-along" here in the 'States, but that wasn't enough to pull it over in the direction I wanted to go. I'm normally not fussy about trying to drop trees against their own weight. If the tree wants to go south, it can. In this case, I was trying to save the Great Farm elm behind it. A 12 inch DBH American elm is not a tree anyone should wish to cut or damage, even accidentally.
But the ash wouldn't cooperate. possibly it wondered why elms were so privileged around here. The tree shifted back on it's hinge cut and trapped the chain saw. the rope, only a 2,000 lb breaking strain utility line, threatened to part. More muscle obviously needed.
Right. So I called in Aimee and we dusted off the 9,000 lb winch we use for raising wind turbine towers. You can see the aftermath.
All's well that end's well.
After cutting this tree up -- known as "bucking" for you Brits, my hands were a teensy bit tingly, and I only had the energy to split one load of logs. The rest can wait until tomorrow. The ash, by the way, had a basal width of 24 inches, but was only 30 years old.
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Welcome to our Farm Blog.
The purpose of this blog is for Aimee and I to communicate with friends and family, with those of our students, and other folks in general who are interested in homesteading and farming activities.
The earliest posts, at the very end of the blog, tell the story of the Great Farm, our purchase of a fragment of that farm, the renovation of the homestead and its populating with people and animals. Go all the way to the last post in the archive and read backwards from there to get it in chronological order.
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