Cherries and ashes

Well Joe made me take the day off today, so I no longer feel like a master slacker.

Couple leaners over my dad’s neighbors field. Perfect day for it too. First was a nice size cherry.


Couple nice size rounds outta this one. Had to noodle them.

The sausage stuffed 365sp made quick work of it.


Real nice size load, only going about 40-50yds across the road.

 

Then dad wanted to help the landowner out by removing 2 leaners behind their house. This turned into thee scariest moment I’ve ever had cutting trees down. I did not get pics or vids of the situation but all I can say is they’re down and no one was hurt. It ended up being a leaner into another leaner. So I carefully cut a notch in the one that was being leaned into, then back cut, leaving lots of holding wood. I was hoping once I started putting more weight on it with the second one, they’d fall like dominoes. Harrumph. The second tree, leaning on the first ended up being partially hollow. And it was a decaying ash. At this point I took a minute or two to clear my escape route a second time. This was sketchy but I was already in too far to let it go. So.. just as I start my back cut, snap. The base of this sumbish just goes skyward. I dropped my saw and ran but honestly, aside from the adrenaline, I felt mighty lucky. The one being leaned on never budged. It acted as a fulcrum and the top of that ash was touching their yard and the base was oh I dunno, 12’ up just sitting there. Unbelievable. Took my limb saw and cut an outlying limb. Top started rising. So I shut the saw off and started pulling on this medium size tree. Again, very luckily, the first tree started falling like originally planned and down went the entire mess. Holy crap.
This was the see-saw point.


I think if I had the canjones and that holding wood was thinner, I would have been ok. You can also see the barbed wire, which is why I went so high.




We didn’t keep all the wood. Lots had too much decay. I’m really skeptical on cutting any ash trees. They are just too far gone around here for me.


(EDIT to change 20’ to 12’. The more I think on it, 20 was the proverbial big fish story)

 

I would have greased my shorts.

 

Glad you made it out with your noggin intact !!!!

 

Then I decided to take one more cherry for myself. Here it is down.


Heavy heavy leaner, here’s my stump.

She’s a beaut Clark.


Fit the entire tree in my truck, even with that little bit of white oak still in there (ya ya, I’ve been slacking). First row had 3 large cherry rounds, second:

Third:

And last.


All cleaned up.


Dads stack;


And mine;


Amazing day. Glad to be alive.


Here’s my next victim. Believe you me, I will be twice as cautious as I’ve ever been before.

 

Sounds like a day at work would've been a lot less stressful Glad to hear you're unscathed anyway. Nice cherry too

 

Any guess on how you'd do it differently?

Down and no damage/injury is a good day.

 

Nice work The Wood Wolverine .
Did you get a new truck to haul your hoard?

 

Alls well that ends well Jason Nice cherry.

 

Scary stuff. The normal adrenaline rush I get is enough. Cant imagine the rush you got. Glad it didn't go South on you and you and dad got some nice firewood.

 

That’s dad’s gold colored Tundra. Mines still the black one in the first pic. I hate firewood’n with a cap so we use his as much as possible.

 

That split second when it’s suddenly not going as planned was not good. I’m still learning from it.

 

Glad you're safe and the job got done with nothing but pride hurt.

It happens, you just have to be cognizant to GTFO when it does.

 

Scary day Jason...But I can't help but wonder if the FHC sign came out unscathed??

J/K Brotha glad you had someone watching over your shoulder today!!

 

I’m still playing it over in my head Mike. First thing is that first hinge being thinner. And second is I’m thinking I could have made a random plunge cut on the second one, if I had known it was hollow, might not have even tried. Another thing I’ve learned is I’m not great at reading the level of internal decay just by looking at these ashes. The face cut didn’t seem really bad but, I think the back cut side (facing up) was a bit worse. I swear I got about 1” in and it broke free, see-sawing up.
I’m sure I’ll keep thinking of things. Not something I’ll be forgetting soon.

 

Always a learning experience. We'll learn til the day we die and hopefully us old farts have a lot of learning to do yet.

 

Man I love me some Cherry wood!

 

Yeah... sometimes cutting at arm's length, is a good thing.

 

I find a pole saw useful for sketchy back cuts. That extra five feet or so really helps.