[AT] Knowing when to call it a day

[Phil Auten]

Dean, Murphy is on you like stink on a skunk. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Phil in TX


On 11/15/2019 7:07 PM, Dean Vinson wrote:
>
> I had some free time this afternoon so I went out to cut down another 
> big osage orange tree, this one out in an old pasture.   Being an 
> osage orange it had two big trunks, each maybe 12-16 inches in 
> diameter and both of them leaning away from vertical, and lots of 
> tangled branches that sprawled out every which way.   Some of those 
> sprawling branches had gotten to the point of encroaching on the 
> pasture fence, so I loaded up the wagon with the chainsaw, chainsaw 
> gas, bar oil, and log chain, fired up the Farmall Super M, and headed 
> out to work.
>
> Took most of an hour to get the first trunk successfully cut down and 
> sawed up into manageable sized pieces.   Not really that big of a tree 
> but man do those things have a lot of sprangly little interlocking 
> branches that you’re constantly fighting and having to cut up into 
> smaller pieces just so you can move them even though they don’t weigh 
> very much.   When I was finished with that first trunk, I noticed the 
> sun was close to setting and I thought “I should call it a day and go 
> get cleaned up right now.”
>
> But heck, I’m already out there, already all suited up in PPE, so I 
> decided to go for the second trunk.   Notched it about waist high on 
> the side toward which it was leaning, cut from the other side, and it 
> fell most of the way over but came to rest on its branches and didn’t 
> break cleanly away from the stump.   [Would have been smarter to 
> bore-cut most of it, now that I think about it.]  I moved out away 
> from the stump and started sawing off the outer branches where I could 
> reach them, but the chainsaw ran out of gas. After filling it back up 
> I went to tighten the chain tension, and while fooling around with 
> that managed to burn the knuckle of one finger on the chainsaw 
> muffler.  Might have uttered a minor curse word.
>
> I went back to continue working my way around the fallen tree, cutting 
> where I could, but there were a lot of heavy branches out of my reach 
> extending high up in the air and I worried the tree would roll over 
> toward me if I kept cutting away what I could reach while the trunk 
> was still hanging precariously off the stump.    So I decided to cut a 
> short section out of the leaned-over trunk right next to the stump so 
> it could fall free, and I could then work on getting everything safely 
> down to ground level from that end.   Since one end of the trunk was 
> resting on the stump and the other end was resting on its branches I 
> figured the heavy end near the stump would want to drop down, meaning 
> the underside of the tree would be in tension, so I cut a notch on the 
> upper side and then began sawing up from the underside.   Turned out 
> I’d guessed wrong and the underside was in compression, and the saw 
> kerf closed and bound up the chainsaw bar tight as could be.   
> Definitely brought out some curse words.
>
> I separated the chainsaw from the bar (learned that lesson once 
> before), leaving the bar and chain hanging there in the partially cut 
> tree, and went to get the Super M and the log chain.   I hooked the 
> chain to the farthest-out end of a decent-sized branch way out far 
> away from the stump, intending to pull the whole thing around so it’d 
> drop away from the stump and release my bound-up saw bar, but just 
> then the Super M sputtered and died, out of gas.  I hate to overdo the 
> curse words, but temptation was strong.
>
> By then it was starting to get dark and my gas cans were a long walk 
> away, but I had about half a gallon of chainsaw gas left.   I poured 
> that in the tank, started the tractor back up, and pulled the top of 
> the tree around.   Sure enough, the trunk dropped cleanly off the 
> stump, so I shut the tractor off, celebrated my hard-fought victory, 
> and went back over to reclaim my chainsaw bar and do some final fast 
> cutting just to show that tree who was boss… only to find the bar 
> driven straight down into the ground like a tent stake under the 
> weight of the trunk.   Guess it’s time to call it a day and go get 
> cleaned up.
>
> Dean Vinson
>
> Saint Paris, Ohio
>
>
>
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