Tough duty

Several months ago, half of a live oak tree broke off at ground level and crashed into another tree. Whenever trees fall into each other, there are some weird dynamics that take place. For example, how much springiness is stored in that meeting place? If I cut one of them, will the other rebound and throw the whole thing back in my face? I have plenty of scars from misunderestimating the power of stored energy in situations like that.

Last spring I made some tentative cuts into this big limb, relieving some of its potential bounce. Today I felt that most of the danger had passed, and used a gas-powered pruning saw to topple the remaining piece. This saw allows me to stand back at a safe distance, in this case about 15 feet (4.5 metres), slowly triggering the engine to see how the limb was reacting to my cuts. The limb came in two and the upper portion simply plopped to the ground with a thud.

The hardest part was to come. In order to cut the limb shown here, I had to cling to a 45° slope of soft grassy ground while holding my other regular chain saw. It was difficult to even get to where I could stand. In fact, the cut shown toward the right above was made while I was sitting on the grass, holding the saw downhill, a very awkward, uncomfortable position. When I cut the limb all the way through, it just stayed where it was, not falling down as it would if gravity worked on hillsides. I couldn’t even kick it loose. I’ll have to pry at it with a crowbar, I guess.

I am not looking forward to continuing this job. Tomorrow we’re supposed to get some rain and the temperature will be only a few degrees above freezing. Might even get snow. Good. Nice excuse to stop this nonsense and stay in the house by a warm fire.