Trees were on my list of chores at my house this summer. Every year I do some trimming here or there. This spring I expected to cut down a silver maple in the front yard. It was previously infested with carpenter ants. It poses eventual damage threats to both the garage and power lines feeding the house.
I had planned to fell it a few weeks earlier this season. Before it budded. That makes the job easier in several respects. Especially clean up. I even tooled up with a bigger saw for the job. However, my schedule slipped. When I arrived this spring it was already leafing out. Which turned out to be fortuitous. Because it looks healthier than expected. I hate to remove trees undeserving of the axe. So its fate was spared. Another year anyway.
Over the winter two micro bursts hit town. Which wreaked havoc in the tree line along the back yard. The fence was damaged by a large limb that fell. After a good look I decided this was my revised spring priority. A bigger dead limb still threatened the fence. I fell that limb sideways, missing the fence. With back lean removed I brought down the rest of that oak into my yard. The only catch was dense adjacent trees that held it up after the release cut. Wedges wouldn't drive it over. So my truck pulled it down.
Then I moved down the line of trees that's over populated anyway. There was another pin oak of similar age and size. It was just as dead (dying anyway) but its back lean wasn't as bad. I pulled that tree down as well.
The third tree on the chopping block was maybe a few years younger. So a couple inches smaller diameter to cut. Several feet less height, and weight to fall. Almost too easy by comparison.
There was another dead tree I had to pass on felling myself. It's so branched near the ground that it reminds me more of a cluster of birches than any oak. Two of those psuedo-trunks arced up high, way over the fence. Plus it's quite mature, yielding perhaps as much mass as the other three combined. The back lean was probably enough to drag my truck if the hinge broke on me. We need to send a boom truck in to whittle back those problem limbs firest. Then I can safely bring down the trunk(s).
I don't know what's going on with these pin oaks dying. Four in such close proximity seems more than coincidence. While that puzzle may elude me, there's an up side to downed trees makes perfect sense. I've learned that in New England, free firewood goes quickly. Once I put out the word, it's as good as gone.
That pile is much larger than it seems. Most of those logs were bucked down to lengths that could be handled. Each is really two or three firewood lengths. Some disassembly required. It is free after all. :)
Well, it's been a productive trip. I didn't remove that maple I expected. But the tree line out back is much healthier. Plus I completed a number of small chores on the house. Good stuff. Time to roll onto other projects.
