Posts Tagged ‘downed trees’
Much Sawing
Put gas in the chainsaw three times. Hauled six trailer-loads of branches away. I wouldn’t call the project done, but we made a respectable dent in the big maple tree clean-up, and we have it to a point where everything can just sit for a while, allowing us to direct our attention to more pressing needs for a few days.
A lot of grass deserves to be mowed, but that won’t happen today. Rain will be the dominant theme for a while, so I may get back on my braiding of polypropylene bale twine for use as a wrapping on the new posts in the middle of the paddock.
Here are some more photos from yesterday’s effort:
Thankfully, another large effort with the scariest tool I use has ended safely. Somehow, I didn’t even get the chainsaw blade pinched the whole day. That may be a first. Got startled by unexpected shifting of heavy wood a couple of times, but I came through without bumps or bruises.
I am very happy putting the saw back on its shelf for a while.
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Aftermath Dealing
I didn’t plan on coping with the work that now lies before me. When a big tree comes down unexpectedly, it suddenly claims a large chunk of one’s time.
We started in on the effort to cut up the limbs of the big maple tree in a short block of available time on Friday.
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Cyndie stood and contemplated the prospect of somehow clearing away all the branches and lumber that lay before us. Asher pitched in to do his part by gnawing the ends of branches to show them who is boss around here.
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The broken limb visible in the picture on the left above is not the maple tree. That is an example of collateral damage to nearby reasonably-sized trees, unfortunate to have been directly in the path of destruction. The photo on the right includes a thin maple tree that has been folded over with a 180° bend.
The tangle of surrounding trees adds a significant level of drama to attempts to cut the mess into workable sizes with my chainsaw. It is difficult to detect where the stored energy of torqued limbs and trees is holding things in place or tangled in a way that will suddenly spring free with great force when cut.
I experienced both in the short initial session we worked. There’s a lot more work left to be done when we can get around to it.
Yesterday afternoon, we enjoyed the great pleasure of a visit from my niece, Tricia, and her kids, Brooke and Drew. They were in the area for Drew’s orientation at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. It will be super to have family so close next year, especially since there is a great deal of fondness between Drew and Asher.
I think they will be good for each other.
We’ve been experimenting with using an e-collar on Asher to practice recall and allow him to move around without a leash, but stay on our property. In the last few days, Cyndie has only needed to drive up to retrieve Asher from the neighbor’s place one time.
We know that learning involves making mistakes in order to figure out the corrections, but who is fond of that part of the process? I am guilty of finding it easier to just grab a leash at this point, even though I really want him to learn to stay around without one.
It’s more work for me to stay constantly poised with a finger on the button, needing to quickly decide if he is fine to chase around in our woods or quickly needing redirection to maintain contact with me. When he bolts, it happens so quickly that I can’t tell if my commands are heard and the collar tone or vibration is even being activated.
Yesterday, he came back on his own after chasing a rabbit, so I didn’t fret.
I’m definitely not a fan of dealing with the aftermath when he fails to respond to my calls. It’s so much easier to lavish him with praise when he comes as called.
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Busted Tree
In my post on Sunday, I mentioned it was windy over the weekend. Yesterday morning, I found a small dead tree had tipped across one of our trails. Later in the afternoon, we discovered a larger tree had busted off on a different trail. High winds tend to bring down more than just small branches around our property.
Maybe the portion of the trunk that had been chewed up by some scavenger became the weak spot, as it snapped off right in the middle of that gaping wound. Regardless, the upper portion is caught in other trees and will need to be dealt with using the chainsaw.
There are currently four other trees in our woods, one smaller and two larger, that are similarly hung up. I have multiple opportunities to practice using the knowledge I gained watching professionals bring down much larger “widow-makers.”
Our “vertical firewood storage” is looking to be cut up and split, whether I want to do it right now or not.
Overnight Sunday we were visited by a little thunder and lightning along with what sounded like decent rainfall on the roof and skylight. Yesterday morning it was hard to tell any precipitation had fallen by the looks of things on the ground. Luckily, by evening the precipitation on the radar looked much more widespread with a potential of extended duration.
By dinnertime, the deck was actually wet from falling rain. Cyndie successfully got a rain cover on Mia to give her an edge in fending off a chill overnight. It would be just great if gentle rain like we were getting would last for several days.
That would give me more justification for putting off the chainsaw challenge I’m not fired up to tackle.
We have a plan in mind to do some much easier chainsawing behind Cyndie’s perennial garden where we found an eight-foot oak tree that is being smothered by junk trees. Actually, they are more like overgrown bushes than they are trees. In cutting down those nuisances we’ll open a lane behind the garden to continue the last distance for our perimeter trail along our property border.
The length from the west end of the north loop trail to behind the shop garage is so congested with wild growth that we have just taken to the driveway over the last ten years. Clearing that section will be a lot of work but I’ve wanted to create a path there for a long time, so it will be a very rewarding effort for me.
Not that bringing down busted widow-makers and cutting them up isn’t rewarding. Opening up a trail though, offers endless appreciation ever after with each successive stroll.
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Chippin’ Away
Little by little, day by day… We made another modicum of progress in dealing with the wealth of downed trees awaiting processing on our property on Thursday. I didn’t have a wasp get into my sleeve and painfully sting me four times when I grabbed a branch to put it in the ATV trailer. Cyndie can’t say the same thing.
Her wrist and forearm looked a bit like a hot baseball bat but that didn’t keep her from carrying on and loading branches into the chipper.
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Under the canopy of leaves that created dappled light over our chosen workspace, we made quick work of the collection of prime-sized, appropriately trimmed limbs we’ve been stockpiling for just this purpose. Once the trailer was emptied, we sought out worthy specimens scattered throughout the immediate vicinity.
That effort reaffirmed my interest in putting more time toward pre-staging the optimum branches for chipping. The brilliant chipper attachment we have can handle up to 5-inch diameter branches but too large a “Y” breakout on a limb will seize progress as it gets wedged in the narrowest point of the chute. Sticks and twigs that are small can also bog things down.
Lately, I find myself inclined toward optimizing production of the best chips for landscaping by choosing ideally sized limbs. There is a time and place for chewing up entire piles of branches, but lately, our purposes call for less shrapnel and more good chip chunks.
Our next task along these lines will be to process the remaining downed trees, trimming and sorting limbs for a future day of chipping. It will be a rewarding exercise on its own, but it is also a form of delayed gratification… if you know what I mean.
There is something really satisfying about grinding a trailer-load of arm-sized branches into a huge pile of wood chips.
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Seem Settled
The most recent batch of wild weather is now history. Yesterday, I cranked up the chainsaw and cut apart sections of the downed trees that obstructed our trails. All of them were already dead and have inspired me to consider being more proactive about tending to the potential hazards to our fences.
Speaking of our fences, I am surprised at the resilience of our high tensile wire fence. Despite the heavy pressure on the top wire of a section where one of the larger trees landed, no damage resulted. After I cut the tree into pieces, the wire returned to its original appearance. At our cold temperatures, I expected the stretch would have remained and required re-tensioning of the top wire.
Our horses seem settled into a winter routine. Their overnight inside the barn stalls protected them from the rain that dripped off fence boards, freezing into little icicles as the warmth transformed into more normal December temperatures.
We had a dusting of snow overnight last night that revealed the horses stayed out in the open while flakes fell. They had little white blankets on their backs when we showed up to serve their morning feed.
There was just enough early sunshine to trigger their habit of standing sideways to soak up the rays. I noticed steam rising off their bodies as the snow blankets began to melt.
In the time since I returned to the house and finished my own breakfast, the sky has become overcast. At this point, the horses are more inclined to lay down and roll around to knock the melting snow blankets off their backs.
They’ve now seen a full gamut of winter conditions interspersed with an uncharacteristic warm spell and spring-like thunderstorm and appear to be handling it with minimal stress. That goes a long way to relieve us from fretting over how to provide them the best care.
It is helping us to feel settled with our late decision to keep the horses here full-time. If they are happy, we are happy.
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Didn’t Hear
If a tree falls…
We didn’t hear a thing, but there is another tree across the trail along our western border. I’m not sure there was even a storm that occurred here since that tree came down, although it was rather windy yesterday.
It was a hot wind for the most part, although the high dew point of 78°(F) caused enough sweating that the air moving across wet skin provided a nice cooling effect. I monitored the storm activity going on to the north all day yesterday, and witnessed some serious damage from hail and downed trees, but the thunderstorms never spread down to us.
I should be more thankful, but part of me feels like we missed out on a big shift of conditions that storms provide. Our temperature and humidity just quietly eased a little overnight. This morning the thunderstorm activity is sliding across just to our south, showing an outside possibility of reaching us before the day is out.
Apparently, Delilah didn’t hear or smell the deer that was laying about 10 feet off the trail this morning. She obviously didn’t see it, despite the rather obvious way the light brown color stood out against the dark earth and green foliage of the surroundings. I decided not to stop for a photo in order to allow this brave animal to remain in place as a reward for it trusting we were not a threat.
I offered a greeting as I passed and we continued on our way. I found it humorous that further along our walk along that perimeter trail, Delilah showed signs she smelled something of interest in the middle of our forest. Her behavior conveyed, “Hey! There are deer in there! Can I go see them?”
Too late now, pooch.
We had a date with the chicken coop to open the hatch and clean the poop board.
I’m pretty sure the hens heard us coming. They started up a chorus of pleas to be freed for a day of free-ranging bug feasting.
I was more than happy to oblige them.
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Relative Something 