On Saturday evening my son and I were sitting in our chairs under the trees after a long day of working around the property. We heard a crash behind us and this tree just fell over. No wind, it just decided it was time to fall over. The base of the stump was rotten. The irony is last weekend I put all the saw stuff away for the season. Serviced, cleaned, fluids emptied, chains sharpened and everything stowed away. Go figure! Today was 98F when we finished cutting and headed inside for lunch. I'll probably save the splitting and stacking for the Fall. Since I had the saw out, I decided to drop this standing dead tree. It didn't come back this spring and I didn't want it to fall over like the other tree. We often park our ATV's and splitting in that area.
Gotta get it while its hot Good thing you weren't near it when it let go. Had a similar thing happen in my woods years back. Clear out of the blue a tree lets go and I happened to be outside. Gotta get it while its hot!
At least you got more wood. What all types of trees do you have there? I imagine it has to be something hardy to withstand all the extreme weather you have.
Wow that's a lot of brown out there..... Glad yall weren't near it when it let go, and glad it didn't hit your shed.
It's disconcerting for sure. Trees are supposed to stay put. There are several in the general area near the barn that are suspect, but that particular tree wasn't on my list. Notice the pic, is has a lot of green foliage in it.
It greens up when the rain starts, October or November and stays green into May. By the middle of June it looks like this. I prefer higher elevation living where things stay green and temps are cooler but I can't handle the commute.
At my elevation we have Blue Oaks, Live Oaks, Manzanita, Digger Pines, Buckeyes. Go up in elevation and there are Ponderosas, Cedars and some Doug Fir. Way up in the Sierras my favorite, Lodgepole Pine.
The second one is dense and dry. The bark must have a lot of dirt in it because the chain was getting dull towards the end. It doesn't look that big in the pics, but the 28" bar barely poked through the other side. I'm stoked about the wood. Nice rounds in there and I'm not used to getting a lot of those.
Looking at the tree itself i would never have guessed it would let go for no reason. Seemed perfectly healthy.
I definitely Like Lodgepole, but Douglas Fir is my Favorite. Most of the areas open to cutting in the Mt Hood NF are more East of the concentrations of D Fir, more White Fir and Hemlock. Higher up, and more to the east we get some Ponderosa, the little of that, that I cut didn’t impress me, just didn’t seem like it was very good wood, my opinion didn’t improve any burning it My Mom inherited a small property near La Pine, OR, which surprisingly has, wait for it……Lodgepole Pine on it. It’s too far to go just for firewood, but I have taken the trailer and a couple saws, when we went for Family get togethers. My 6x12 tandem axle trailer has 6’ sides and 3,500# axles so it’s rated for 7,000#. Fortunately Lodgepole is a fairly light wood, and about 3 cords had at 8,000# on the axles and around 1,800#( maybe )on the tongue, that made it a worthwhile trip, that the Big Red Truck, and trailer handled in stride. I like the way that lodgepole smells and burns, especially how it smells when it burns, but I noticed that it tends to get a slight spiral to the grain, so it ends up a bit strange when it comes to stacking it D Fir is my Favorite, but I will Happily take any Lodgepole that I can get Doug
Doug fir for me was super rare. I have only had one pickup bed full so I don't really have an opinion. Ponderosa is everywhere between say 3500' and up to 6000' or so. What I don't like about Ponderosa is all the knots. Kinda stringy too. Lodgepole for me was very straight grained. Nice straight splits. I guess it depends on where it is growing. I like how you think! If I was going to a family get-together like that I definitely bring a trailer and a saw. That's classic. I bet your family still talks about that. I had a 2001 Powerstroke F250! Big Red would have shrugged off that load but if you asked the trailer you might have got a different answer
My Big Red Truck is a 1994 F350 Crew cab, Long Bed, 4X4 ( 4X4D, is my License Plate =4XFord ) with one of the First 7.3 PowerStrokes, backed up by a 5 speed manual She needs some work, but it did handle it well, and I didn’t Hear the trailer complaining any, okay a few groans, but no Actual Complaints Doug
