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Friday, October 6, 2017

Aspen Errors, Part Duce...

As noted earlier (Aspen Errors, 7/6/15), there's a lot of dying aspen trees on the property. The latest was next to the old sauna. It'd been dead for a few years, but after the problems last time, well I wasn't exactly ecstatic about dropping a tall tree so close in. But figured it was time, it'll be no problem with a rope and come along I thought, just pull'er towards the garden and it'll drop just fine. So after hooking up the ropes, Andy cranked everything tight. Then started the chainsaw and began the undercut. Almost immediately the bar got pinched and the saw was  stuck. So Andy released the tension and was able to pop the bar free.  But the bad thing was that I could feel the center of the tree was hollow, there was only a little ring of hardwood left holding up a 60-70 ft tree. So after she tightened'er up again, I started to finish the undercut. Without warning, the tree started to fall, it pulled the chain right off the bar and fell, not towards the garden clearing, but right at the greenhouse. Fortunately it hit a double birch tree, got deflected a little, and missed the greenhouse by a few feet. Like I always says, it's way better to be lucky than smart.

The aspen would have taken out the greenhouse if it hadn't been hung up by the birch.

The back of the stump just broke off when the undercut took out enough good wood. That one log is still stuck between the trees, probably have to cut it out.

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