A friend passed away last week and his wife asked me to remove a bunch of oak trees to make the property look better for the sale. We split and stacked 2 cord today and brought home almost another cord. The two we too down today were heavy leaners, maybe some would say extreme, with the top of the tree being nearly horizontal. One dead one alive. I bore cut them and when they let go it was an explosion of wood. There are more dead and heavily leaning trees that need to come down, so we will be busy for a while. There is a big snag that needs to come down. That one will be "fun". It is a red oak mostly broken off 5 feet up, leaning on a white oak, ready to hit a nice maple. I don't like the way it sits because there is no good way to get it down without hurting the other trees. It's in the woods, but it still bugs me. I am going back in a few days to have another look at that one. The pressure line for the return stroke cracked as we were finishing the 2 cord, so I will get a soft line for it tomorrow. The original was steel, but it cracked a couple years ago, so I replaced it with copper. It held up better than expected and only cracked because the cylinder moves a little and the copper work hardened over many many cycles.
Sorry to hear of your friend. That’s a rotten way to come across a score. Nice to help out though. Stay safe with the dangerous trees.
