Since this thread came up again I'm going to add ants.
I had to drop a big old pine snag that was limb weighted towards a fence. Property owner didn't care about the fence as it is coming down anyway, so that was nice, turned out to be about the only nice thing about this job.
I get up there and it is crawling with ants, not the big huge ones and not the little bity sugar ones, just normal size ants you see in the forest.
I knock off some chunks of loose bark with the bar and size up where and how to cut, it at least has a solid shell and no rot showing lower down. So I clear an area around the base for working and pick a spot with the best protection from all the hanging dead limbs. That is about time I start getting bit by the ants, just a bite here and there at first.
I put in the face, getting bit about every ten seconds now, mostly on my arms and a few on my neck.
Face is all solid wood except for one small little track of rot, cool, this thing will go where I want it if the back is decent. I bore in to establish the hinge and see what the wood is like through the core, nothing to worry about there.
The ants however are getting to be a worry, lots of bites on the neck and arms now, having to keep my focus on the top and watching what the tree is telling me. I wasn't going to walk away for some annoying ant bites, wanted to get the tree down and be done with it.
I cut the triangle for the release and start to cut away on the trigger, getting bit all the time, eyes glued to the top, ear muffs off, waiting for the tree to talk to me.
Pop! She says it's time! I kill the saw and start running like a bat outta' the hot down under.
I'm focused on covering my head and shoulders area and smacking at ants, huge crash behind me and watching bits flying in the air out of the corner of my eye tells me she's down.
Good, now I'm free to squish ants! I work on them fast and furious and within a few seconds I've thinned them out.
Was still finding ants on me an hour later.
Next day I hosed the tree down with bug killer and then I came back a day after that to buck it into firewood.
Yep, those ants kinda' pissed me off.
That was also the hardest old pine I've ever cut, that stuff was solid and dense, very little rot. Tree had a notch cut with an axe all around the base, it had been used for rigging of some sort when the property was logged, I'm wondering if the rusted away donkey engine worked off that tree way back when. I've not seen this supposed donkey engine myself, property owner said it's on the next ridge over, I might hike over at some point and see.
Mr. HE
