Carnage behind the barn

Thought I'd post a photo of the mess I made a couple weeks ago. I'm embarrassed, but this is a learning experience for sure...

These are alder, big ones compared to most on my property. These were growing in the old barn shavings from the last century, so they have been well fed. I went at them with too small a saw, and had a hard time since they were leaning all over the place and I couldn't get through them quick enough. Not only that, but I'm used to the strong fir and these were a whole different animal.

One barber chair, one widow maker, and then a blast to my butt from a branch when bucking yesterday. I need to be careful around these ones. Anyway, these pictures don't do them justice, but I'm pretty happy to have these on the ground. Should be a couple cords of good cooking wood in there.





And a bonus shot of more carnage behind the house. The logs are cedar headed for my neighbors home made bandsaw mill. The Fir is next in line for the firewood stacks.



Lots to do!

 

Me too! Those 2 things are the most important!

 

Dang right, that's a HAWGED UP MESS ya got there, sheesh

Love that thread title....CARNAGE, haha, apt word to use there....Atilla the Hun couldn't even get through that wiry mess

 

Cleaning up the brush from those has to be a pain too

 

That looks like a tangled mess! Guess you don't like limbing them first then? Seriously though, glad to hear you're ok - sounds like you had someone watching out for you, but they had to give ya a paddlin so you take more care next time!

 

Thanks all, I learned a lot in this one....and yeah, what a mess! I really wanted them all down at once as spring is in full swing and the main reason to bring them down was they were blocking early season light. So, I should have taken them one at a time, but I gained a couple hours of morning light by making such a dang mess. Still, I'll be picking away at this for a while. I'll get some pics from ground zero next time I'm working them. I need to take down a couple fences and install some gates so I can get in and out of there and start bringing it up to the stacks.

 

Your 1/3 of the way to BTUs.

 

Glad you are safe and they are down.

Do you know how to bore cut? Felling using a bore cut pretty much eliminates barber chairs from happening.

I just learned that felling cut this year, and I can say it's a pretty slick cut.

 

Thanks Horkn, I do know that cut, and have used it a few times with good success. It would have been perfect here, I was a little overwhelmed as my big saw was down and I was chipping away at them with the 028. I'll remember to try that next time, thanks for the tip.

 

That sloped back cut is kind of dangerous ,it will not keep the tree upright if it tips back if that is the thinking of it .make your back cut strait in ,not angled ,if the tree wants to set back use a wedge ,it will lift the tree and make it go the direction you want to go ,if you have a heavy leaner ,I have had good luck with the coos bay cut ,i use it on all leaning alder trees ,they chair bad if just make a strait in back cut ,i use the triangle cut ,it is easier to me ,make a normal face ,nip the sides like a triangle ,then make the back cut ,releving the sides first keeps a leaner from popping

 

Hey, thanks for the good info TRX! In my defense, that sloping back cut you see in the photos is due to the fact that these trees had grown around a bunch of woven wire field fencing, so on that particular back cut I was coming in above the embedded wire and trying to meet my hinge which was lower. I was hoping no one would see that and think I was trying some new technique I invented!

The fencing was part of the problem as I had to cut all of them higher than was comfortable. In the case of the really tall stump in the back, two trunks joined and the base was like 60" around, so I had to get up on the other stump to get to where I could even get through it. Honestly, that day of felling was a disaster and I learned a lot.

 

YIKES! While limbing keep a heads up for those would be binding limbs under load. I suppose if you had to do that...now's the time with no leafs in the way. Looking forward to see it cleared up.