Then we went back this AM to take out 3 "no climb trees"...one dead pine 70 feet, it did fine....upright went where it needed to.
The next one was a fair sized oak, maybe 20" DBH but a back lean towards the house. A high pull rope and a big skid steer put it down fine, too...plenty of good wood in it.
Last tree, not so good. I woke up this AM thinking about these two oaks...both leaning towards the house...wondering if I should bind them since we were going to pull them with the skid steer to overcome the lean. This last one was maybe 18" DBH. As soon as I got about 4 inches into the face cut (made bottom but first) I thought I heard a crack...there was a faint line that might be a crack. I had the steer tighten up more to take stress off the spar and hot footed it to the trailer to get a chain. By the time I had gotten back the split was defined...a barber chair in the making.
I got it bound, cut my top cut for the face and then had a proper face cut showing....this took the 8-10" off the slab that had started with the first cut...without removing that section above the base cut I figured the slab would be fighting against us as the tree got to vertical. I had the steer tighten some more and made the back cut as he slowly pulled. The tree went over fine.
I will probably start binding leaners that have to be pulled up to vertical as part of the fall. The hollow of this tree almost got us. My inner voice had me wondering if I should bind the tree before making any cuts. Or I should have at least bored into it to see if it was hollow or rotted at the center.
