Tree Surgery Post 2: Like Father, Like Daughter ... or The Nut Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree

This is the tree that I took pity on 20 years ago when it was a wee tiny thing. It wasn't a problem back then and I let it live, only cutting the occasional overhanging branches off to protect my blueberries.
Somewhere along the way, it did a growth spurt and became too tall to prune easily. That allowed it to grow even higher and shade my blueberries and now grapes entirely too much. It had gotten so large that pruning involved me up high in the tree (dangerous) and any pruned limbs would fall onto my delicate blueberry bushes... so I decided to take it out.


It's a laurel oak, known for fragility and short (in tree years) lives. My job was to drop it not on the old truck, barn, or BBQ platform. That's the old grill in the left bottom corner, it sits upon a little wooden platform that I did not want to crunch ... or have to move.
It's not THAT little after all.


I like to add a little direction when I fell a tree in tight quarters, and since I had two trees to fell this day, I took the easy one down first. That allowed me to use it as an anchor to apply tension on the tree in the direction I wanted it to go.
To do that, I hooked a Come-A-Long jack to the fallen, bucked log and then ...

... tossed a rope around the tree to take down. Hooking the rope to the Come-A-Long jack allowed me to apply a directive force to the tree to guide it down. The target area was tight and I didn't think I should rely on my notching ability alone.
This was done after the notch was cut. You can see it high up on the tree ... about chest high ... (not for you Cindy... more like head high.)
I usually cut my trees high like that so a nice tall stump remains for the woodpeckers to attack in the years to come.


It worked like a charm as you can see in this arboraerial photo.
The old grill is just visible through the leaves and the platform and all it held came through unscathed.

Emma found the ladder and was up it like a flash. She's so daring ... must get that from her mother.

She certainly didn't get it from me.

Sometimes hugging a tree can save your life.

Y'all be safe out there, ya' hear?

Tomorrow: A video view from above for wordless Wednesday.