An old time family friend said he was going to have to take a bunch of trees out as the ash bore had done their thing. He's over 80 years old and still gets after it. I offered, no insisted, to help as they are close to his house on hilly ground. He had a few cut when I got there.
We are going to cable most all these and do it the slow way so we don't have any surprises.
3 more down in the back and there are more away from the house but he wanted to get all of the ones close to the house first so we'll move to the front.
Cutting a lot of these higher with larger hinge cuts. Then pull them down slowly. This one in the process of being pulled and did a wedge hinge to get it to roll instead of being a hanger. You can see how much it was leaning as it still has not overcentered at this point.
4 more down and he wanted the one in the very center to slip between the 2 trees on either side. Not my choice but that is where he wanted it. We are using a pulley point at the bottom of the hill and cranking it tight way to the left.
Everything is going exactly where he wanted it and we are all happy about that.
Cable goes to the tree in the center of the pic then back up the fence line out of camera range. Takes a 100ft cable 50 cable, chain on 2 trees and strap on the pulley tree.
Tree hung up some in the top but cranked the cable till it stopped. the hooked it to a tractor and pulled it the rest of the way down using the cable.
Most of these trees are 16 - 30 inches in diameter and like telephone poles. I hook a chain around the tree and attach the cable to that using an extension ladder. Ground is pretty hilly around and that slows things up. Owner of the property in the pic here, he's 82 years old and is amazing to me.