Hollow cottonwood leaner (pic heavy)

[philoshop]

An interesting study of small hollow tree forces/reactions. I woke up this morning and immediately noticed this tree leaning.
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Its been a squirrel house since I moved in and I had planned on taking it down.
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I moved the splitter and the trailer out of the danger zone, put a line about 30 ft up ( I used to be able to do a 50 ft throw without much difficulty, )and pulled it over with the tractor. It was just slightly hung in another canopy but it came down without much effort. Looked it over carefully and decided to make the first cut away from the base and from the same side that this pic was taken. The moon and stars were in alignment, the trunk went away from me and up about 6".
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The 180 is there for scale at the base of the tree, and the rope is on the stem just out of the pic to the left. It's about 16' hanging there.

 

[philoshop]

Hollow cottonwood continued

I knew for sure that trunk was goin' back up once the weight was gone. I fetched the 260 for the extra bar length and speed and stood on my tiptoes to very carefully cut the overhang.
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Absolutely amazing how strong that last little holding strap was. Once that 14' of log was on the ground I couldn't pick it up to get a round under it for bucking. And the stem went almost straight back up.
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Granted it's wet cottonwood, like a giant rubber band with leaves, but an interesting study in the reaction forces of hollow trees. BTW it's all split and I have no idea what to do with it. :confused2:

 

[zogger]

Nice pictorial!

It's firewood, burn it/sell it/swap it.

I have a lot of lesser species and grades B,C,D whatever wood..I don't care, if I have to touch it, it gets processed and stacked.

 

[philoshop]

Oh I'll burn it. Just not sure where I'm gonna put it.
Next year's stack or two years out? It's got more water in it than my shoes right now and I've been trekkin' thru the heavy wet grass for three hours chasin' varmints.

 

[TreeTangler]

Buck it and split it and I think you'll be surprised how quickly it'll season.