2 years ago I was helping clear trees on some state land along a river. Beavers had been in there in years past and cut down a lot of cottonwoods mostly in the 6”-12” range. Pointy rotten stumps everywhere. They had also attacked one that was more in the 24”+ range, but didn’t finish the job and didn’t kill it either. Just gave it a big scar and a notch. It was a bit of an intimidating tree to fall. About 6 feet up the trunk divided into twin stems that arced or bowed out and then back over the center quite a ways. But was severely top weighted 90degrees to the sweeping arc of the two stems. There was nothing around to damage except me even if it went terribly wrong. I would study it for a while, go drop a couple others, come back and study it some more. Did really matter which way I tried to drop it, I just wanted it to go well and safely. And my ego wanted it to go exactly where I thought it should. After much consideration I decided that the beavers had it pretty well figured. I put my face cut right on top of the beavers notch and the back cut directly opposite. I often put some sort of “target” on the ground to check my aim. Well, I nailed it! The beavers had it figured perfectly, just gave up too soon. That experience has always left me wondering if and how, and how long do beavers spend figuring how to take down a tree
