Well, this weekend we went and did another red-neck thing. We are planning to place the two trailers at the end of the house and make that into Drew's place. But before we could do that there was a tree at the end of the house that needed to come down. Called a tree place and they were going to charge $175 just to cut it down, $225 if we wanted him to do more. But wasn't sure he had insurance and the place we really wanted to come cut it down doesn't come this far north.


And I had the weekend off, so Drew brought a ladder home from work and we figured how to do it. Not sure which one of us did the most work, I did all the cutting, but it was pretty fun, no one got hurt and we didn't hit the house. Lol!!

We had gone out the week before and cut down some of the smaller trees and started clearing things out. Then on Friday we had quite the circus trying to tie a rope around the tree to use as leverage. Started by tying a stick to it, and then throwing it up in the tree. Didn't work well. So we got on the roof and tried throwing it from there. Drew threw and then I tried. Looks a lot easier than it is. Takes a lot of force to throw the stick very far. So we decided a brick might be better, and got a small brick and tied it instead of the stick. Eventually, Drew got it around a good enough place and we left it for the night and came back Saturday Morning to cut the tree.

Now this tree we estimated at about 70 years old, 3 feet in diameter and about 6 feet up it branched in two, and then a few feet above that one of them forked again. So there were three separate pieces we needed to cut down.

Last we moved all the vehicles and cut the last piece down. It fell next to the pile of wood chips and didn't hit any trees or any thing. Then we limbed them and dragged the trunks out to use as landscape timbers. Used a tow rope and chain to drag them and ripped the toe strap several times before we were done.


As you can see, some of the logs are pretty good sized.

We started with the one we had the rope tied around. I climbed the ladder and Drew pulled on the rope. Came down with no problems and even missed the house by a mere foot or so. That was by far the closest to the house and the one we were most worried about.

This is the tree as it looked to begin with. There are two main trunks that twist and you can see the third branch pointing almost at the camera.



We set the ladder, then I climbed up and tied it to the tree with a tow strap. They came in a package of 5 and sure come in handy for stuff like this, lol.

Then, I took the electric chain saw up with me and started making cuts.

Can't really tell in this picture, but this is the branch falling.

Me, after the cut, on my way down.

Yep, it came pretty close to the house. Closer than we had planned, but far enough away that it didn't touch anything. I mean, we hit the house several times trying to throw the brick up into it. So this was nothing!

I think we rolled it toward the house, but you get the idea here of how close it was. And this was the smallest of the branches we cut that day.

Then we cut off the piece that was toward the back of the house. It too fell with no problems and landed right about where we wanted it to.

Here you can see it starting to fall as I move away from it. Face it, they were big enough they deserved some respect, right?

You can see it laid out neatly here, away from the house and in the cleared spot we had created the week before. A lot of tree there. Then get ready for the final cut.

These last two cuts caused special problems because I needed to cut them so far above the ground, but really no way to climb up to it. So I stood on this ladder and used some wood pallets.

Here is a beautiful picture of the last one free-falling. What a bang it made! It made a near perfect fall also, missed the wood chip pile and went between it and the tree next to it. Could have gotten way with not moving any cars, but why push your luck.

No more shade, it was getting hot and there were lots of limbs on the ground. You can see how big the pile was getting.

King of the hill? Or drama King? Lastly, we cut this trunk a few inches from the ground. Couldn't quite get it free, so brought the truck around and pushed it over. Can you say RED NECK?? Now all we have to do it re-stack all the branches on the stump so we can burn them soon.