A little over a month ago myself and another guy that lives across the street took down a large elm for the village. As we were finishing up a guy came by and asked if we would do a problem tree ( tight quarters, leaning towards the house, and lightning stuck a couple years ago). Darren agreed to do it and would rent a lift to access it. I told him I would help if I was available. Yesterday was the day, and I had to work for about 2 hours at my regular job, but told him I would be there as soon as possible. He was just finished when I got there. Turns out that he only had to knock the top off and the home owner would drop the trunks and do all the clean up. That little bit of work sure didn’t seem worth the time and trouble of renting the lift (3 hours down and back to get it, and then again to return it when done). But he had other plans and rented it for the weekend. He has another house in town that he has been working on and it too is in desperate need of trees work. So I agreed to help (I’m getting paid, plus anything I want for firewood). So we moved over to his place and got started. He’s is in the lift and I am the ground guy. He rented the dump truck from where I work for hauling off the limbs and trash. 6 loads on Saturday. Today we hope to have a dump trailer that we can back in much closer and sits way lower. The trees in question are 2 small walnuts ( pretty sure) an ugly cedar that has about 6/7 stalks in a clump, a sizable hackberry limb off the neighboring property that has to be cut out of the way, then another cedar that has been damaged up high which continued to grow and created a tangled mass of branches and a dog leg that put it over the roof of his house. AND THEN.. a massive hackberry (I think) that is over 3 power lines and I think 4 structures. Huge amount of firewood in that one. Here’s a couple pictures from yesterday, I promise to get more today
Fun to do tree work for pay now and then. You taking any of that cedar? Dries fast, great kindling plus you cant beat the smell! I see Darren is using the right brand of saw.
Sounds like you definitely won’t be hurting for firewood anytime soon It always amazes me how close people plant trees to houses. Looks like that multi-trunk cedar might have been a single trunk that was felled years ago, which stump sprouted into the big mess it is now. What’s the rough DBH of the large Hackberry you’re taking down?
Nope, only saw it once as a yard tree somewhere. It’s on my list of species to try someday if the opportunity comes up.
Ya know,,,that cedar would make a great table if you turn the stump upside down. Table top with 6-7 legs. $$$$
Pictures from today & answers to a few questions. Still part of the main trunk of the hackberry left. He’s gonna check and see if power company will drop a line so I can fall the rest of the trunk. The big cedar we thought might be a good candidate for a saw mill. Turns out the straight part has wire in it and the marks on it makes me think it swallowed a woven wire fence also has got rot the whole length from the broken kink all the way to the stump. I’ll probably take most of it as he is not fond of burning cedar.
Not sure, it’s not all down yet but there was only about 3 inches of a 28 in bar sticking out of this cut. Biggest hackberry I have ever tangled with
Lots of pictures More pictures of today. Was at it for 12 hours. I think 7 or 8 loads of limbs and brush to the dump. this is a small elm I dropped with surgical precision so we could get the lift to this side.
Yeah, I’ll get some, probably gonna try for the big cedar chunks & some of the bigger trunk wood off the hackberry when we get it all down. All the smaller stuff is in random tree service length and there’s is precious little straight stuff that will be easy to split and stack neatly. (Gotta have neat stacks to show you people) Hackberry seems to be the poster child of bumpy, gnarly, crooked, hard to stack nicely, trees. Plus he knows that I have and like to play with bigger saws. And his “off” brand saws can’t handle wood that big!
Yeah the job could’ve been done quite a bit faster with other saws and sharper chains, but I kept my mouth shut. I was getting paid by the hour anyway.
Interesting question. I dumped the brush today from yesterdays job and paid $20 but shouldve been $60-80! Dumping fees have doubled for wood/brush etc. Usually i dont pay as he asks if im a resident but jobs i did last year made him realize im a commercial hauler. The dump was jammed tight with mounds of chips. The price for chips has gone way down. Pointed out a huge dumpster (guessing 30 yard) full of chips and he says they only get $200 for it full!
