TIMBER!

June 1, 2009 - Joe and I went over to the property yesterday morning to do a little tree work. We only had a couple hours, so I was under the impression that we were going to just cut down some really small stuff. But after I had cut down a few new trees, Joe pointed to a huge hemlock and said - 'I'm gonna take down this one. '

Oh.

We moved our cars out of the way, and then he showed me how to check which way a tree is leaning and where it's carrying the most weight. Then he cut a chunk out of one side -

Then he placed me a good distance from any potential landing zones and started cutting from the other side. Pretty shortly thereafter, I heard him call - "TIMBER!!!"

And then boom -

It was down. Joe got to work sawing off all the limbs on the top and sides (you have to leave the ones on the underside initially because they carry a lot of weight and could break a leg or kill someone). I carried all the limbs over to a big brush pile. When the trunk was clear on top and sitting on the few branches underneath, we lifted a branch until the whole thing rolled over onto the ground, then cut off the last of the limbs, leaving a big ole trunk for Joe to play with at somepoint. The job was done in under two hours, and we went on with our day. What a fun project!