We felled 6 huge Tulip Poplar trees today, to make way for the sun to shine on our vegetable garden
(during last year's gardening process, we realized we needed more sun). A task I thought would take hours took our friends Ed and Ronnie 75 minutes...I'm so grateful to have their expertise to get those big'uns down
(the largest was about 80' tall)!
This is before felling
(it's a little dark because the sun hadn't crested the mountain yet)...
...and this is after.
The NE side, before...
...and after.
The SW side, before...
...and after.
Ronnie
(looking up, watching the limbs for movement) and Ed
(sawing). Ed was a lumberjack back in the day!
Tree #1, down it goes!
The sound of a falling tree is really amazing, first you hear it start to tip, and then it swooshes through the air, gaining momentum, and CRASH, it hits the ground with a thud and the sound of crackling limbs.
A wedge was used after a cut was made into the trunk to try to "encourage" the trees to fall in a certain direction. We did have one tree decide to fall differently than we had hoped, but we could cut it and get it off the road
(at least it wasn't the power line!).
Ronnie spotted poison oak
(bad stuff, don't want to be near that, not even during winter) so we removed that from the tree first.
I never realized those particular vines climbing the trees was poison oak, but now I know!
After all the trees were down, Ronnie cut them into 10' pieces so Johny and I could get them off the garden and ready to transport for cutting into firewood.
It took Johny and I a couple additional hours to clear the garden of all the trunks and branches, and create piles of "firewood making material". Now the garden has some time to recover from today's trauma before we are ready to plant!
It was a good days work...I think the coming of spring has given us a little spark of energy!
Thanks for reading my blog, you are the best f/f/r/s/f's, see you tomorrow,
Lise
5 comments:
From artist to logger! Hugs!
You remind me of my husband and me when we were young and clearing our place in the woods where we eventually lived for thirty years.
We had such fun doing all that hard work and the satisfaction of seeing our results.
Good luck with your garden, Lise.
How did you move 10' pieces? With the quad? That'll make lots of good firewood after it cures. - Margy
Margy, we haven't moved them yet...our neighbor Charlie, who is currently in FL, will be helping us with his tractor's fork attachment. In the meantime, we will have to cut it into 18" pieces and move them that way. And you are so right, lots of great firewood for next year!
Thank you so much Glenda!
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