Taking down a large lawn Oak

[Iska3]

That really hurts to see a tree like that ending up firewood but even the mighty oaks fall in due time. Good that you got to use the wood and close to the house. I took out several good size oaks last year for a family that lhad trees that ooked like yours. Felt bad but like i told them, best to take them out now before they fall and do some real dammage.

Had to laugh a bit, when we first bought some property north of us, I had a Mini Mac 6 and was taking down big oaks like yours. Talk about using a saw to do the job.. Like I always said, years ago they cut down them trees with handsaws - so in the right hands, most any chain saw would work.. Good Job!! Love the pup...

 

[svk]

Had to laugh a bit, when we first bought some property north of us, I had a Mini Mac 6 and was taking down big oaks like yours. Talk about using a saw to do the job.. Like I always said, years ago they cut down them trees with handsaws - so in the right hands, most any chain saw would work.. Good Job!! Love the pup...

Just did some 20"+ hard maple and oak with my buddy's 35CC Stihl...totally hear you on that! He has several larger trees that will come down this summer and I will be taking my saw along then.

 

[Marshy]

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.

Man that was painful to watch. Dull chain or rakers too low. Working that saw into the ground. Nice fell though. Do you always use a ruler to measure each cut?

 

[Jere39]

Jere, love all your videos and pics of your working with wood. I do and enjoy the same. One question, what was your technique on getting that rope/chain so high up in that tree. Looks pretty high up, but may not be. I use chains but with the long length like you were pulling, I am thinking of getting some of that amsteel rope, real expensive but light and supposed to be real good stuff. Thanks again for the great videos and photos.

I use a throw line with a 14 oz bag, then I use a simple carabiner to snap a 100' line to it and pull it back up for the pull. I must have had the rope about 50' up the tree as both ends were off the ground when I made my loop. My line wasn't long enough for my anchor point, so I spliced another to get me to the come-along.

It's a shame you lost that tree, but nice work regardless. What part of PA are you in, and are sure Oak Wilt is there? I'm just asking because the maps I've seen don't show it here in eastern PA. I'm sure it will come - I get so upset when I think of the loss of the ashes and then the oak getting hit with this.

I have not had a microscopic analysis of this or any of my trees. An aborist told me this tree in my lawn was oak wilt, and quoted me an unreasonable price to take it down. A state forestry guy came out and walked around my hill top and told me it was "likely" oak wilt that I am losing a half dozen or so hundred year old oaks to every year. It is mostly the Red Oaks that are dying and that too is consistent with Oak Wilt. Though, I am just finishing up processing the old White Oak below that has been dead about 6 years. I don't have a clue what killed it:



I live on a hilltop in the northern tip of Chester County, in a cozy house in the middle of a nice stand of second generation PA hardwood. Most of my cutting is a short ATV pull from my shed, though this is the first one in my lawn to die. You can see the tree I took down there more or less center of this arial photo I took out a friends plane window a couple years ago. It wasn't completely dead yet then, but it had dropped all it's leaves while the rest of the woods were still holding on to their brown and yellow leaves. Each year less and less of the tree grew leaves. Last summer a couple sucker branches budded, leaved, and dropped them by July.



Sadly, though the woods are restoring, the replacement growth is more tulip poplar, beech, and birch. The big old slower growing oaks are not restoring. And, it is a very sad circumstance indeed.

 

[Jere39]

Man that was painful to watch. Dull chain or rakers too low. Working that saw into the ground. Nice fell though. Do you always use a ruler to measure each cut?

I don't, I have about 55 years experience cutting 18" firewood and don't miss by more than half an inch. But, that was my buddy, and he is less confident, or maybe more precise than me. We had the yard stick to measure the stump, and since it was handy, he slapped an 18" mark on the trunk where he was cutting.

 

[Chris-PA]

I have not had a microscopic analysis of this or any of my trees. An aborist told me this tree in my lawn was oak wilt, and quoted me an unreasonable price to take it down. A state forestry guy came out and walked around my hill top and told me it was "likely" oak wilt that I am losing a half dozen or so hundred year old oaks to every year. It is mostly the Red Oaks that are dying and that too is consistent with Oak Wilt. Though, I am just finishing up processing the old White Oak below that has been dead about 6 years. I don't have a clue what killed it:

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I live on a hilltop in the northern tip of Chester County, in a cozy house in the middle of a nice stand of second generation PA hardwood. Most of my cutting is a short ATV pull from my shed, though this is the first one in my lawn to die. You can see the tree I took down there more or less center of this arial photo I took out a friends plane window a couple years ago. It wasn't completely dead yet then, but it had dropped all it's leaves while the rest of the woods were still holding on to their brown and yellow leaves. Each year less and less of the tree grew leaves. Last summer a couple sucker branches budded, leaved, and dropped them by July.

View attachment 406464

Sadly, though the woods are restoring, the replacement growth is more tulip poplar, beech, and birch. The big old slower growing oaks are not restoring. And, it is a very sad circumstance indeed.

We're just south of Allentown, and have lost quite a few large oaks in the last 5 years or so, but there were two major storms involved so the circumstances are not clear enough to point to oak wilt. The first one I lost was a 135yo white oak, then about 8 northern reds in the Halloween storm, and a few more in hurricane Sandy. Last summer a large white oak came down on a perfect clear, calm sunny summer day. These all have pulled up root masses of varying sizes, and that last white oak didn't have much in the way of intact roots at all (it just kind of fell over when the ants chewed up the last rotten root). There were signs of white fungus all through the wood. I'm wondering if the roots were already weakened on some of the others we've lost.

I'm going to have to get a lot better educated on recognizing the signs - not that I can do much of anything about it. We've got a lot of shumard oaks and they seem to hold up better than the northern reds.

It's starting to look like the tulips are the only large trees we'll have left - I love them and they are a rather unique native species, but the wood is light. I cannot imagine what will happen to the wildlife without the acorns.

 

[TKeller]

Thanks for the explanation on the throw line Jere, very helpful .

 

[rwoods]

That aerial shot is beautiful. Not many places like that around here. Our red oaks are dying here too. Doesn't seem to take long once the top starts. The folks I talked with said here it was too much stress due to a combination of extended drought, bugs and disease.

I enjoy threads like yours where folks get the work done safely with whatever they have. I debated mentioning the saw but I like the mid-size Stihls and your video caught my attention.

Thanks to the dying oaks and the chainsaw forum on AS, I now have many more saws than I need. The dying oaks - I began falling enough big ones to want an even longer bar for less time at the stump. AS - I learned that most old and dis-favored saws are cheap and with a little help I could buy and fix several old saws for the price of one new saw. Nonetheless, most of the time even two saws are one too many for me.

Ron

 

[Jere39]

An update on what I accomplished today, working with my right hand pup.


First, I pushed a path through the crusted over snow to a suitable spot for the next large brush pile. I like to think of it as the future home of a variety of mammals and birds.

Then spent the morning dragging brush to the pile while my assistant spent the same time dragging tasty sticks out of the woods for a quick chew then onto the next one.

After lunch, I fueled up and sawed another tank, and I am still not finished. Could have used a heated handle, my fingers on the top had were mighty cold when I finally ran out of mix.

And finally, sized up a candidate for a table top I could put on my deck so this old tree doesn't have to miss any family picnics even though it no longer shades us.

Probably a repeat again tomorrow.

 

[Iska3]

wow!! I'd say that you were busy. That's what's bad about some of those older oaks - Lot of limbs and twigs to clean up but a good snack bar for them deer and little critters. It looks like you have way more snow than we do here. If I have 2 inches on the ground I'd be lucky. Not must snow at all this year, I think I pulled out the wheeler twice to plow the road and that was mostly so the guy and his wife down the road can get out. The poor guy is in a wheel chair for the rest of his life. They were taking down a large oak like yours and when it fell, the top limbs kicked back the trunk and pinned him under the trunk. Always gott'a clear the area when the tree starts to go...

Good job Jer, stay safe..

 

[Jere39]

I got tired of dragging the brush, so I decided to start stacking. First task, find a pair of dead trees suitable for use as rails for stacking:



Squeeze the ATV in there and hitch to them:



Drag them to the vicinity of a stacking location:



I layed them, leveled them, and started carrying the smallest stuff to keep on the farthest end of the stack. Finally started hauling some of the smaller rounds to a suitable stacking spot for seasoning.

I'm afraid the forecast is not good, more snow that will bury what I already cut, and likely make gathering/moving the brush a nuisance, as if it isn't already a painful part of working in the lawn that I don't typically deal with in the woods.

As always, under the watchful eye of the TSO:

If you folks are getting bored of this thread, think about me dragging that brush.

But, I backed away, and can honestly say there is at least some noticeable progress today.

 

[Jere39]

Day Four - I may not finish this till Spring:

Another day of hauling, splitting, stacking, squeezed in some sawing, and generally, hardly made noticeable progress.

The stack is growing, with some splitting, but still working on the limbs, haven't even considered the trunk yet.

And, looking over my work area, it looks like the big oak just kind of threw-up when it hit the ground. I promise I am actually making progress.

Ran another tank of fuel mix thru, mostly cleaning up some of the interlaced branches I am stumbling on. Still can't get my rope out from under something.

And, knocked a couple more pieces off the big end off:

And, of course, my helper is hard at work too. I keep him on a leash when I'm running the chainsaw:

 

[svk]

Looking good!

 

[Chris-PA]

I feel for you! When I took this ash down in our yard it exploded, leaving so much litter. It took days to clean up! I just built a fire at the base of a large rock near by in the yard.

 

[svk]

I feel for you! When I took this ash down in our yard it exploded, leaving so much litter. It took days to clean up! I just built a fire at the base of a large rock near by in the yard.
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I guess that's the downside of cutting standing dead within one's yard. I usually try to get yard trees on the ground once the top starts dying to avoid this. I cut an ash over our access road last spring that totally blew up like this.

 

[zogger]

Day Four - I may not finish this till Spring:

Another day of hauling, splitting, stacking, squeezed in some sawing, and generally, hardly made noticeable progress.

The stack is growing, with some splitting, but still working on the limbs, haven't even considered the trunk yet.

And, looking over my work area, it looks like the big oak just kind of threw-up when it hit the ground. I promise I am actually making progress.

Ran another tank of fuel mix thru, mostly cleaning up some of the interlaced branches I am stumbling on. Still can't get my rope out from under something.

And, knocked a couple more pieces of the big end off:

And, of course, my helper is hard at work too. I keep him on a leash when I'm running the chainsaw:

Man, there is a LOT of work on those big limby trees, but you get a LOT of wood if you do it!

 

[Jere39]

Got tired of dragging brush, so I finished cutting the tree up. Who knows, maybe some guest workers will show up over the weekend and help?

 

[Iska3]

Got tired of dragging brush, so I finished cutting the tree up. Who knows, maybe some guest workers will show up over the weekend and help?

I'm glad that you don't live near me, I'd feel sorry for you and come over and help. Cleaning up that and walking around in all that snow makes it a bit nasty and no one like wet gloves.. On the positive side, you won't get much mud or dirt in the bark.

 

[moondoggie]

Get a sling shot with that throw line! (Couple poles too). Just read the directions and have fun.

 

[Jon E]

Great thread. I have a few trees at the edges of my yard that have to come down soon and I am not looking forward to the cleanup. At least I have kids to help. Now if I can just get rid of the 28-30" of frozen white crap in the yard it will make my life easier.