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- #176
Bump....THUMP!
The big dead pine is history! It went down today.
I admit to not doing the felling cuts, the stump was too high for me to safely and effectively weild a 660 with a 3' bar...and even with that the cutter had to double cut it.
The joy of big machinery, they had a track excavator, used it to smash off the lower branches, the cutter went up in the excavator bucket and reductioncut the big branch, then they pushed it off with the excavator!
I got the pulling line up in it, not without drama, using my new bigshot and right as it bag is on target...a big tangle in the bucket, the bag goes through then promptly winds itself three times firmly around a branch. We came home with a very short piece of thowline.
Luckily my Mr. had the bow and arrow, he nailed two great shots at about 60', we had spare line to pull the rigging rope through, got it cinched up, 4ton shackle tied off with a trippe wrap then a double fishermans, same on the other end, shackled to a 2t sling basket hitched to the excavator.
I put two rachet straps on the bottom, just in case, the slime at the bottom had me concerned. As ithappened the tree was sound all the way through, the slime was from just under the bark.
Josh cut his face, then as he went round the back cut I put in the wedges...about 2/3 the way around there was a big 'THUMP' as something gave way inside, then he got almost round to his mark and she started to go....Wheeee, CRASH!
As the dust settled, two possums came dashing out, they had been nesting up in all the fuzzy growth about halfway up!
While the estate staff went to lunch, I delimbed it, Bob (the hubby) cut up the stuff on the ground. When they came back they set to with a massive grapple machine and the excavator, I got to use the 460 to crosscut the trunk, some fo the biggest crosscutting I've ever done! The last one had to be done with the 660...too big for me.
By 3pm, all that was left was a big pile for burning and a few pine cones and sticks...Amazing!
The big dead pine is history! It went down today.
I admit to not doing the felling cuts, the stump was too high for me to safely and effectively weild a 660 with a 3' bar...and even with that the cutter had to double cut it.
The joy of big machinery, they had a track excavator, used it to smash off the lower branches, the cutter went up in the excavator bucket and reductioncut the big branch, then they pushed it off with the excavator!
I got the pulling line up in it, not without drama, using my new bigshot and right as it bag is on target...a big tangle in the bucket, the bag goes through then promptly winds itself three times firmly around a branch. We came home with a very short piece of thowline.
Luckily my Mr. had the bow and arrow, he nailed two great shots at about 60', we had spare line to pull the rigging rope through, got it cinched up, 4ton shackle tied off with a trippe wrap then a double fishermans, same on the other end, shackled to a 2t sling basket hitched to the excavator.
I put two rachet straps on the bottom, just in case, the slime at the bottom had me concerned. As ithappened the tree was sound all the way through, the slime was from just under the bark.
Josh cut his face, then as he went round the back cut I put in the wedges...about 2/3 the way around there was a big 'THUMP' as something gave way inside, then he got almost round to his mark and she started to go....Wheeee, CRASH!
As the dust settled, two possums came dashing out, they had been nesting up in all the fuzzy growth about halfway up!
While the estate staff went to lunch, I delimbed it, Bob (the hubby) cut up the stuff on the ground. When they came back they set to with a massive grapple machine and the excavator, I got to use the 460 to crosscut the trunk, some fo the biggest crosscutting I've ever done! The last one had to be done with the 660...too big for me.
By 3pm, all that was left was a big pile for burning and a few pine cones and sticks...Amazing!
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