Posts Tagged ‘Stihl’
Lotta Tree
It happened again. This time, the big willow tree by Cyndie’s perennial garden lost a third of its trunk when the added water weight from the more than 2 inches of rainfall brought down the section with the most lean.
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To make clean-up more interesting, it dropped into one of the more hearty patches of poison ivy on our property. Generally, we avoid setting foot anywhere the poison ivy grows. Yesterday, with a heavy dew soaking everything, we found ourselves up to our elbows in poison ivy. I fell down into it once when a branch I was tugging on broke free. Cyndie got splashed in the eye by moisture from the mix of ivy and tree leaves as she pulled branches out of the tangled mess.
It will be a miracle if one of us doesn’t break out in a rash in the next few days. We vigorously washed with special soap and tossed our clothes aside for segregated laundering.
I worked my way into the now-horizontal crown of the tree with the big chainsaw, being careful to avoid cutting something that was under tension that would either pinch the blade or shift the heavy trunk. When I had cut as much as I could reach, it became clear I would need to get the pole saw.
After I had removed as much of the weight as possible from the extended limbs, I started in on the biggest parts of the trunk. At one point, a trip up to the shop garage was required to get a pry bar to roll the beast so I could finish cuts. Throughout the entire effort, which consumed our whole day, we only needed to wrestle free the pinched chainsaw blade three times.
It seemed a little unfair that we were doing this again so soon after wrangling the fallen maple tree in the backyard. It was doubly worse because of the added hazards of poison ivy everywhere we worked. However, the saddest part about the timing of all this was that it was Cyndie’s birthday. Cutting up and tossing branches was not the spa day she would have preferred.
That was a lot of tree to process. We put all three sizes of our STIHL chainsaws to good use on the relatively soft wood. Man, that battery-powered trimmer saw is a handy tool for pruning branches.
Our priority of getting that work done was related to the fact that we are heading up to the lake today for the weekend with Cyndie’s mom, Marie. After the big physical effort to get through all that tree, we are looking forward to a few days of R & R on Big Round Lake.
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Limbing Up
We have a fair number of big trees that need professional attention to bring down high branches and widow-makers. I received a quote for the work but the guy said they can’t start until the ground dries up enough to support their machinery. I don’t know if it will ever get that dry.
While he was here, I asked his opinion about pruning the lower limbs of our evergreen trees. Some trees are getting so wide at the bottom, that I can barely get around them on the garden tractor when I’m mowing. He offered no objections to limbing up the trees about 3-4 feet.
For all the years we’ve been walking our property, I’d never noticed that our neighbor’s evergreens are all “limbed up” 4-6 feet until I started thinking about doing it to ours. I see that as a good sign, that I didn’t notice. It never looked “wrong” to me on their lot so I trust I won’t dislike the look on ours.
I’m starting with the trees that most annoy me when mowing and then will decide about doing more of our others after I see how the first few look. It’s really a great problem to have, trees getting so big.
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One of the challenges of pruning so many branches is that it creates large piles of cuttings that need to be dealt with later. Right now I am thinking about trimming off the smallest portions of the cut branches and creating a pile of the woodiest cores to be run through the chipper. The needles and small ends can be tossed into the brush piles I’m creating as a natural hedge fence along part of the northern border of our property.
Working on the second tree yesterday using our cool Stihl mini chainsaw, I was cutting so many limbs, one after another, the machine shut down because it got too hot.
Too much of a good thing, I think. This handy little chainsaw is a really slick addition to our cutting tools. The problem with it is that it works too well.
I have to fight the urge to cut too many branches because it is so easy. Just because it’s easy doesn’t mean I should.
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Trimming Trail
Our property has been getting spruced up in preparation for a workshop Cyndie is hosting today. In the middle of my workday yesterday, I received a message from Cyndie that there was a tree leaning across one of our trails that she wanted me to clear when I got home.
Oh, yeah. I remember neglecting to take care of that for the last three weeks.
The tree was actually small enough that I decided to use a hand saw to bring it down the rest of the way. It just took enough forethought to finally have a saw in my possession when I walked deep into the woods.
The walk to get there was difficult enough through areas of the trail that were getting overgrown that I switched tools after the trees and branches were dispatched and got to work with the Stihl trimmer.
It brought to mind that moment six years ago when I was shopping for that trimmer with very limited knowledge about what I wanted to buy. I suddenly realized that I had lucked into a salesperson at the hardware store who was less into selling and more into how things worked.
I was talking to the mechanic who fixes equipment, not some kid who works the cash register and helps people find things in the store. I remember telling the guy about the property we recently moved to and how that quickly led him to the size trimmer we should have. I took his word for it.
He said we would be able to run this motor full speed all day long and it wouldn’t suffer one bit. I didn’t imagine we would ever need to push a tool that hard.
Now, when we spend hours upon hours running that trimmer at full tilt, I understand where that mechanic was coming from. He steered me to the right machine for our needs.
When it was new, that guard piece was bright orange. Not so much anymore.
As too often happens, I was within about ten yards of the end of one trail when the trimmer engine ran out of fuel. I took a break for dinner.
It’s not easy to discern the vast level of improvement in this shot of one section I completed, but after Cyndie and Delilah took a walk toward the end of the day, I received a pretty good rating about the freshly cleared pathways.
I’ll take that as a win.
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Partial Trim
The weather yesterday after work wasn’t conducive to getting a lot of mowing done with the tractor, as storms bobbed along in the thick atmosphere and brought frequent rain showers to the region. As a result, I opted to get out the trimmer to clean up some fence line because that tool is quick to start and easy to maneuver if/when precipitation arrives.
I barely made it through one tank of gas when rain clouds interrupted my progress, which left the back pasture fence line only half done.
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Getting caught up with all the mowing and trimming that needs to happen will occur in small steps this week, between occasional showers and thunderstorms. My plan is to take advantage of short blocks of time by doing a little bit of work whenever I can fit it in.
Oh, and to also stay home all weekend to maximize my availability for getting things done.
Even if it is only partial progress, it is better than none at all.
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Another Tool
I have totally abandoned my attachment to manual saws for trimming high limbs, and I know exactly why it happened. I have enjoyed nothing but successful ease with our two Stihl small gas engines after making the leap of buying a chainsaw and trimmer.
They were my gateway drug.
It took nothing more than a casual work-place conversation reference to a chainsaw on an extension pole to trigger my conviction that that was exactly the tool I needed. We already keep a jug of mixed gas and have experience with two very similar engines. What’s one more?
When a discount coupon arrived in the mail from my favorite hardware store —the one that has supplied my fix of other Stihl equipment— I was all in. It felt a little like I was being possessed by Tim Allen’s grunting tool guy.
The first tall branch where I hoped to test it turned out to be a bit more than what I could reach. Why start small? I quickly learned its limitations. Even standing on my ladder, I couldn’t lift the motorized pole high enough to reach the height where the limb had snapped and was dangling.
It seems like it should be so simple in theory, but the combination of difficult angles, heavy weight of the motor and pole, and awkward leverage of the long reach make using this tool a complex challenge.
Still, it will be a very helpful addition to my arsenal for clearing overhead branches along our trails. Also, and maybe even of more significance, it will serve us well in creating a high hedge-like wall of growth along our northern border where our neighbor grows a field of corn.
For those of you keeping score, this now makes it four small gas engines, …and still not a leaf blower among them.
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Relative Something 