Thursday, October 15, 2015

A Big Project Completed~ falling trees

Sometime back,
I mentioned that I had difficulty in cutting trees on our place.
There was one in particular that Mr. LB was not fond of.
It's a pine (which I love) that happened to grow in a very unfortunate spot.
Behind our shop and lean-to where the wood is,
there is an area that once had a falling down, rotting, wooden garage/barn
and two still houses as well as various scruff trees and brush.
The still houses went shortly after moving in 15 years ago.
The barn went about 5 years ago.
Gradually, we have cleaned up the area in hopes to park back here.

The only problem was - trees.
There was a huge cottonwood on the neighbors side that would
drop limbs, branches, leaves, and those sticky pods.
Then there was also our crooked pine tree.
I don't have a picture of the cottonwood while standing, but
you'll see the large rounds.
Now, usually if I consent to fall a tree, Mr. LB is immediately there with
chainsaw in hand, zip-zip like you would see in a cartoon.
These were a little different.
The neighbor's cottonwood was at least 4 feet in diameter at the base and
leaned in the direction of our shop.
Our pine was not as large, but leaned toward the neighbor's house.

Long story short (sorta) with proper notching,
jacks, pully system, and tractors, the trees fell towards the river
with no injury to any structure or person.

Here is the cottonwood already fallen, and the pine fell right behind it.

Then there was some cleaning up so the stump could be removed, and
the trees could be pulled from the river.
If we were to leave them, they were big enough that they would
most likely cause damage down river - not what we want.

It took some doing as the tree was well rooted, but 'we' finally got it.
It left quite the divot.

There it goes.

 And here's what remains.  You can see the cottonwood stump in
the upper right hand corner.

The neighbor is great on his tractors and back filled pretty well.

Then came getting those monsters out of the river.
This is the base of the pine.

Deciding the best way to lift them up and pull them out at the same time.

After much maneuvering. . .

And by the time Mr. LB was packing up, here's what it looked like.
Over by the lean-to are the fence panels that were removed in order
to fall the trees.

After a couple evenings, of moving gravel around and bucking up
the remaining logs, we finally got to park back here.
I didn't get a picture of it cleaned up before we started moving rigs
back here.  And yep, we have old rigs.
We don't worry about scratches and such when we go get wood
or haul things.  (These are both 4WD & not our daily drivers.) 
We'll get one more load of gravel at some point since there is still a dip
where the stump was, but it's so nice to have it all cleaned up.
Out front can now be cleaned up since there's nothing parked there now.

Until next time,
Nimble Fingers and Even Stitches



7 comments:

  1. Tricky work, but it looks like they nailed it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Even though it is hard work big projects are so fulfilling. Thank you for sharing. Will you make anything with the wood besides fire?

    ReplyDelete
  3. a bit job so well done, do you have a wood burner so you make make use of all that wood I wonder.So god to manage to get all the roots out too, even small shrubs I have cut back still have the roots left, could do with a few of your tools, tractors etc! and even a few men to help too to sort out my garden

    ReplyDelete
  4. Boy do I know what dangers big trees looming over a place can be and it is very good you took care of them before they caused major damage to property and maybe even life. I miss the trees we used to have all around our home but after 3 came down into our roof during a big storm I think everyone is wise to not have trees hovering over structures that matter.

    What a beautiful place you have, and you sure did accomplish a lot. You're blessed to have such a good neighbor too.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great job without damaging anything near the trees! Our neighbors had loggers come out and thin out part of their property which is fully wooded. They cleaned up areas where it was much too overgrown, the loggers took the main tree leaving the tops for our friends to cut for firewood for years and now their woods can grow better. They made a nice sum off of it too!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Tricky work indeed.. I am sure it was hard to part with the tree too but the truck parking is invaluable also!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Make sure to get your trees trimmed to prevent fallen trees

    ReplyDelete