What are the most oddball things you have found inside old trees

[ross_scott]

thought I would ask this as I am doing a logging course here in New Zealand to finish off some qualifications I started five years back so I can finally enter the logging industry and make a career of it. OK enough of the blabbering and onto my little story that happened today, I was out at a farm with the guys cutting up some old trees into firewood for a friend of mine (we have to do this before going to the skid sites for the log making training to help newbies get experience with handling chainsaws and cutting technique with no skidders or haulers around to worry them) anyway I was out there with my brand new stihl MS460 Magnum and was enjoying cutting up an old Tasmanian black wood tree and all of a sudden my freshly sharpened chain wasn't cutting too good so I shut down to check my chain and sure enough I had hit something that was not wood, so the tutor decided he would cut back from the cut where my chain went dull to get the job finished and leave the contaminated part of the tree well he got the good stuff off the tree and just as he finished the last cut an old beer bottle from the 1930's fell out of the beginning of the contaminated wood :shocked: I have seen trees growing around fence wires and metal stakes but never a glass beer bottle.

 

[keith811]

I found a hub cap once. saw a tree with a bicycle in it sticking out of each side. nails and bullets are common. found a coin of some sort once couldn't tell what it was after I hit it with 066 mag

 

[ryan_marine]

I found duck eggs once. It really smells bad if you hit them with your say. Who knows how long they were in there. Some had nothing in them others were full and rotten.

Ray

 

[Wood Hick]

Barb wire, fence insulators,horse hitching eyelets, etc are common in the eastern US. Several years ago either Field and Stream or Outdoor Life magazine had a small page depicting odd tree finds. The neatest as I recall were a Winchester rifle that was left in a crotch and the tree grew completely around it, and the best was a mummified coon hound inside a hollow tree, it still had the tags on it identifing the owner! My best ever was a hatchet, partially exposed about 25 feet up !

 

[Hddnis]

Live possum.




Mr. HE

 

[Mad Professor]

4 horseshoes used to make a split rail gate. Ruined a blade on a big circle mill.

 

[joesawer]

When I was a kid, near Ridgeway Colorado There was a cottonwood in the Dallas Creek bottom that had a rifle grown into the crotch.
If that tree is still alive it has completely covered the rifle by now because only a few inches of the barrel and butt where showing 30 years ago. I have no idea what kind it was, It had an octagon barrel and a small buttstock with a steel butt plate. It looked like a carbine.
Other than that I have found all kinds of tramp metal, a few bottles, and in Southern California the power company hung their lines on trees instead of cutting right of ways and installing poles. They hung tons of galvanized hardware in trees, some of it way up high.
I have a small sapling that some one hung a draft horse shoe over a limb and the tree started growing around it. I cut it down to save some future soul from finding it the hard way. I packed it out and it is at my dads sawmill now.

 

[utilityman]

I found an old cant hook made by a blacksmith. The tang on the end was made from an old rasp. Someone had laid the thing in the crotch of a tree and forgot about it. The tree grew around it. I very carefully split the thing out. I use on my tree truck. What a nicely made, well balanced piece of equipment.

 

[Frank Boyer]

There is an old 1920' to early 1930's car with a tree growing through it at the botom of a neighbors property. The tree keeps getting bigger.

 

[griffonks]

When I was a kid, near Ridgeway Colorado There was a cottonwood in the Dallas Creek bottom that had a rifle grown into the crotch.
If that tree is still alive it has completely covered the rifle by now because only a few inches of the barrel and butt where showing 30 years ago. I have no idea what kind it was, It had an octagon barrel and a small buttstock with a steel butt plate. It looked like a carbine.
Other than that I have found all kinds of tramp metal, a few bottles, and in Southern California the power company hung their lines on trees instead of cutting right of ways and installing poles. They hung tons of galvanized hardware in trees, some of it way up high.
I have a small sapling that some one hung a draft horse shoe over a limb and the tree started growing around it. I cut it down to save some future soul from finding it the hard way. I packed it out and it is at my dads sawmill now.

I love the Ridgeway area. I fell for a girl in Norwood,CO too many years ago and spent every spare moment running down there. Unbelievable country- rugged as heck.

The only odd thing I ever scared out of a tree with my saw was a bat. While cutting a beetle-kill pine this bat flew out from under some loose bark and into my Carhart jacket while my saw was ripping away. Freaked me out for sure and I'm lucky I didn't cut my leg off when I jumped back.

 

[isaaccarlson]

I just decided the other day to find out what I hit in the big maple

so I used my worn downest chain and started in from all sides until I hit whatever it was......destroyed the chain but it was gone anyway.....it was half a railroad spike from 1958 when the tornado came through....figures because the tree was only 100 feet from the tracks....I figure the tornado ripped up the tracks and broke the spike off at the tie and then slammed the tie into the tree and the bottom of the spike kept going when the tie broke....those things are hard. I also found a box of nails in an oak this winter....the hard way.

 

[1foxracing]

 

[huskystihl]

family of Opossum 30ft up and momma was pissed and I was real surpsised. Sprayed by a skunk with a 32" bar in the cut, thought somebody maced me. Somehow your just never expexcting these things, good thing my hearts good eh.

 

[mile9socounty]

Do mexican's that don't want to work count? The only strange thing I've ever found in a tree was a steel T-post. It looked like the fence was attached to the dead oak tree. Nope. I was wrong. I ruined a brand new chain very very fast.

 

[stihl sawing]

I have posted this a few times before git here ya go. Also found a bunch of railroad spikes in a tree, Also hiy one with the saw. The pic is an old fence insulator, it was in the middle of a huge water oak. The pic was taken a couple of years after i cut the thing. My MIL saved the chunk so took a pic a while back.

 

[056kid]

lots of animals, mostly squirrels. you see them wondering around all dazed like after you have fallen a tree.

Has anyone ever had to fall a tree with a big bird nest in it. I have this thing that bothers me, im afraid that one day i will be forced to fall a tree with a hawk or some falcon in it. That would not be cool.

 

[stihl sawing]

I forgot about this one, I dropped a huge oak one time and it was full of honey bees. When it hit the ground they were everywhere. I dropped the saw and ran to the truck. Sit there for a while before i went and got my saw.

 

[isaaccarlson]

never seen a skunk with a 32" bar......

family of Opossum 30ft up and momma was pissed and I was real surpsised. Sprayed by a skunk with a 32" bar in the cut, thought somebody maced me. Somehow your just never expexcting these things, good thing my hearts good eh.

that must have hurt!!!!

 

[cat-face timber]

I can remember when I was little (yes a few years and a few pork chops ago)

My dad was falling a tree, and his bar had blood runnng down it.

He stopped, and told me to come over, he then showed me the family of bats that he cut.


I am sure it was not that big of a deal to him, but I will always remember touching the bat's fur and his wing skin....

 

[Sparky8370]

I forgot about this one, I dropped a huge oak one time and it was full of honey bees. When it hit the ground they were everywhere. I dropped the saw and ran to the truck. Sit there for a while before i went and got my saw.

Should have dumped a little extra 2 stroke oil in and used the chainsaw to do some bee keeping.