Btw, you probably know you shouldn't be doing much cutting with the bottom/6 o'clock portion of the wheel, wheel cuts best when contacting the wood between 3 o'clock and 5 o'clock, specially in dense-azz wood
Richard and I had 23 beech trees in a stand planted in 1853 to fell and buck today.
The forest was by the ocean and there was heavy winds blowing in with gusts up to 20 meters per second.
Felling such large trees in that much wind is walking a pretty thin line.
We pulled it off, though. ( We do, after all, have almost 70 years of falling experience between us
I had one blow up on me, because it was rotten. No way to set a decent hinge, and since I was felling slightly crosswinds, it tore the hinge, twisted and split.
No danger, I realized it was going to happen, so I had an escape route ready.
Some bark falling off up there on Thursday.
A buddy at work’s rental property, I cleared a bunch of stuff away from the wires for him, felt silly trimming it, all these ash are goners. I let him know he might have til next summer before they’re past being safe to climb. Might be sooner.
Nope, it is rot of some kind.
The picture is a bit hard to make out but that is actually in my facecut.
See what happened was, I set a face and then realized that with the tree being so rotten and the wind so high, the little bit of wood that was left in the corners of my face, would not hold.
So I cut the downwind side first ( Always cut the downwind or down-lean side first, because when everything goes, that is the side that'll trap the saw and let the tree roll over it, I learned that the hard way, once)
Then I cut the upwind side, leaving a backstrap.
The wind ripped the "hinge" out in the side that is facing towards the ground, the tree turned and split over the backstrap.
It ended up leaning against another tree.
After looking at it for a looooong time ( Richard kidded me about that afterwards), I decided that it was safe to cut through the backstrap and let the whole mess roll off the other tree and fall.
It looks a lot more dramatic in the picture than it actually was.
That long split came really slowly, so I had plenty of time to skedaddle.
I finally managed to get the pictures of one of the rotten Cottonwoods we felled yesterday out of my new phone.
Sorry, but I was born in the middle of last century, I have a hard time with new phones and computers.
Like I said in the "Today" thread, we had 3 of them to drop near buildings at yet another one of our numerous castles.
All 3 turned out to be rotten /hollow.
I'd asked for a LARGE 4 wheel drive tractor and the game keeper showed up with a smallish Valmet, about as old as me.
That thing had absolutely no traction in the mud.
So we had to imprivise, meaning I had to climb them and drop enough tops and limbs to change the lean.
Yes, I have started climbing again.
Been out of it for over a year, since I got sick.
But with Richard stuck in the feller buncher and our other good climber getting a forester job, I was the only one to fill the job.
I've done 2 jobs this week and while I am admittedly a bit slower ( took a large blue spruce out thursday and in my estimation I was 15 minutes behind my old self)
I was surpriced to find that I still have what it takes.
62 years old and ridden with leukemia, and still able to climb and log.
Not too bad, methinks
Sean, 90 % of my work is logging.
Doesn't make for interesting pictures, mostly, since it is just knocking trees over again and again.
When ever I do arb work, I try to remember to take pictures.
Most boring for those doing it forever, in the same old trees, but the rest of us, who never see it, it's not as boring, IMO.
Rare I see hardwood forests anymore, living over here, unlike the midwest US.
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