I cut down a tree today. It was a small tree, really - maybe ten inches wide at the trunk, 15 feet tall at most. And I just have a dinky little corded chainsaw. But I googled “how to fell a tree,” did the cuts, and blammo, success. Now I’m jonesin’ to cut down three more trees…
I mean, tree removal was on the list of stuff to do. But it was kind of “I’ll have to get quotes…” Now I’m looking at the trees, seeing the clear lanes, none of them would hit the house, there’s no wires around them…
About 4 years ago, I had one to take down. A 15" pine, pretty decent size, had beetle damage. I made a chalk bullseye on the driveway, because I really needed to drop it there. Nailed it. I think I've got it on video. I'll see if I can find it. I've taken down quite a few trees, but that was definitely the most fun one.
Nothing makes you feel like you've done a thing like cutting down a tree. Also, check out the barberchair examples in the link if you want the bejesus scared out of you https://fireandsaw.com/barber-chair-tree-examples/
Happy Friday! @NatCH , you are the threadwinner today! You receive a bag of nothing. It's full of nothing, and it tastes like nothing. Have a wonderful day. Focus: your tree felling adventures Don't drink and chainsaw, y'all. But do drink and light a fire in a hole somewhere.
Okay, it wasn't exactly in the bullseye. It did hit the driveway where I had intended, but not quite as dramatically accurate as I remembered. I don't know how to post a large .mov file, though.
I worked for 2 summers with a crew that cleared brush and trees under power lines - walking ~10 miles/day with a chainsaw. The actual tree cutting adventures weren't very noteworthy - all small stuff. I did, however, manage to grab the moving chain once on a chainsaw with a malfunctioning brake. Nothing a couple dozen stitches couldn't fix, during which the nice doctor told me that I had missed my tendons by less than a millimeter. I also should have listened when he told me to take the narcotics before the numbing agent wore off. But the job definitely put me in the best shape of my life and I got a great tan. And, having been an IT nerd most of my life, I was enlightened to the segment of women who are very attracted to men who work outside all day.
I have fell (feld?) many trees with an axe before. Yet to do it with a chainsaw... for some reason that seems more dangerous to me. Never seen a barberchair tree. Might just leave this task up to the pros now.
Most of the time I chop down trees via the Art Of Eight Limbs. Granted they’re banzai trees, but trees none the less.
Let me see if this works . . . I think the thing I was most excited about, was there were tree limbs hanging over the right side and left side of the driveway that I wanted to avoid breaking, and it went between them and landed on the driveway.
We had a birch between us and the neighbor that was dying and needed to come down. It was about 30 feet tall, maybe 8 inches in diameter- thin like birches tend to be. It wasn’t big, and we knew it would be an easy job. It was questionable how it would fall, so we we ran a rope from the tree to my buddy’s pickup and pulled it in the direction we wanted it to go prior to cutting. But before we could cut it the Mrsanthropic came outside and insisted we call our tree guy (a cigar chomping, muscle bound dude currently in prison for attempted murder) who lived around the corner. He jumped out of his pickup, took one look at our rig, and asked “What are you waiting for? Make the cut “. She didn’t trust us, but this guy, sure. Must have been the cigar.
So one of the previous owners of this house (the original owner probably) either was into bonsai, or just liked to do weird trimming on the little trees. Earlier this week I had to trim this monstrosity of a tree, where all the limbs curved up and out toward the road. so I turned it into some modern art. The stump to the right, we got the previous owners to cut that one down. The two trees directly behind it need to come down. And all the limbs from this fucker are stacked back there too.
I feel so honored. Here’s a story: my dad had a college friend who worked for a big lumber operation. He was working with another guy on throwing big limbs and shit into one of those giant wood chippers. My dad’s friend turned his back to grab another branch, and during that time his partner’s sleeve got caught on a branch, and when he turned back around…dude was gone and sawdust was red. That’s what I was told, anyway…