This was kind of a sad day. One of the large oaks in the middle of my lawn died slowly over the past few years, probably of Oak Wilt.
It's the taller one on the left. Pretty much dead center in my lawn. The other Oak, which sadly is dying too, but not dead yet, offers some protection to the house in case this fall goes about 180° wrong.
I was waiting for a good solid snow pack to take it down, to minimize the damage to my lawn turf. Today was the day.
This oak is about 32" DBH, more than I would tackle with my 18" bar, so a friend with a Stihl MS 362 and a 24" bar came to help.
And, yes, the flippy caps are in fact a PITA. Especially with cold fingers.
You can see even the 24" bar required we cut from each side to get through. You can also see the house there in the back ground, and the notch to drop away from the house. But, in this case, I threw a line up as high as I could get it, then hooked the Come-Along to a sturdy birch tree to apply the appropriate persuasion.
This is an edited down video, to about 1:43. The whole drop took about 30 minutes, and you can see how much the snow fall rate increased while we were working.
You can see and hear the tree snapped once, then kind of hung for a minute till I got the come-along caught up and pulled it down.
Even with it down, I needed the 24" bar to buck the trunk and make the first cut on each of the main limbs.
We cut for another hour, took a lunch break for some home made chilli thanks to the videographer, then back to saw for another tank or two.
Still have plenty to saw, then clean up, but the snow was getting deeper, and I needed to do some plowing.
I also have video of some of the limbing and bucking, but I'll add that to a follow up post.
One last money pose with the director of security:
There will be plenty of firewood in this baby, and plenty of clean up work for me. But, I have the rest of the winter to work on it, and hopefully the snow pack will help me drag the brush off into the woods where I'll stack it into custom small mammal shelters.
It's the taller one on the left. Pretty much dead center in my lawn. The other Oak, which sadly is dying too, but not dead yet, offers some protection to the house in case this fall goes about 180° wrong.
I was waiting for a good solid snow pack to take it down, to minimize the damage to my lawn turf. Today was the day.
This oak is about 32" DBH, more than I would tackle with my 18" bar, so a friend with a Stihl MS 362 and a 24" bar came to help.
And, yes, the flippy caps are in fact a PITA. Especially with cold fingers.
You can see even the 24" bar required we cut from each side to get through. You can also see the house there in the back ground, and the notch to drop away from the house. But, in this case, I threw a line up as high as I could get it, then hooked the Come-Along to a sturdy birch tree to apply the appropriate persuasion.
This is an edited down video, to about 1:43. The whole drop took about 30 minutes, and you can see how much the snow fall rate increased while we were working.
You can see and hear the tree snapped once, then kind of hung for a minute till I got the come-along caught up and pulled it down.
Even with it down, I needed the 24" bar to buck the trunk and make the first cut on each of the main limbs.
We cut for another hour, took a lunch break for some home made chilli thanks to the videographer, then back to saw for another tank or two.
Still have plenty to saw, then clean up, but the snow was getting deeper, and I needed to do some plowing.
I also have video of some of the limbing and bucking, but I'll add that to a follow up post.
One last money pose with the director of security:
There will be plenty of firewood in this baby, and plenty of clean up work for me. But, I have the rest of the winter to work on it, and hopefully the snow pack will help me drag the brush off into the woods where I'll stack it into custom small mammal shelters.
.
