Our lightning-struck tree is a veritable wood mine. So far we have nearly completed cutting about one-third of it. There are other live oak trees that need to be removed because they’re fire hazards, but they’re downhill and the rounds will roll into a dry (right now, anyway) creekbed. About six trees are way too close to buildings and need to be removed before the next fire season starts. Oh, and there’s yet another dead tree whose branches will fall into cactus plants. Already one major limb has been removed, and there are at least ten others. It too is a downhill tree.So for now, we are enjoying our uphill tree that is surrounded by nothing but open space. Gravity is our friend.
So far my only complaint is that this wood dulls saw chains quickly. It must have a lot of silica in it, because I have to re-sharpen them daily. And today the sliding base of the wedge on our log splitter broke from being twisted too hard going through some of the nastier parts of the log rounds. The splitter will still work, but I’ll have to keep an eye on the wedge to keep it from getting twisted and possibly bending the shaft on the ram. With 27 tons of force, that could happen pretty quickly.
2 comments:
How do you know it's a lightning-struck tree?
Be careful of your fingers and 27 tons of pinching force!
I was looking in that direction when there was a very bright flash followed almost immediately by a very loud bang followed almost immediately by a very loud thud. Perhaps I was witnessing a very large photographer taking a flash picture when his loaded cigar exploded and he stumbled and fell on the tree, knocking it down. It could be either. I prefer the former since we don’t have many very large photographers around here.
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