He Couldn't Take It

I knew it wouldn't be long.

With his trusty sidekick of course.
Yesterday was the day.

Mr. LB fell the 2 big trees that needed to come down.
It had snowed Saturday
so there was still a skiff covering most of the ground in the morning.
Needless to say, the ground was still as wet as last weekend.
Above is the locust which was dead.
You can see a couple large rounds of cottonwood in the background.
Those are from one removed out behind the shop 2 summers ago.
We will take care of them this summer.
He got this all bucked up and taken care of before moving onto the next.

My folks came up so Pa helped with the cottonwood.

This one was pretty good sized and was leaning way over.

They got most of it cleaned up and I have a feeling when I get home from work,

I will find Mr LB out here working on bucking up the rest.

It amazes me just how much water these trees use.

That's actually a puddle in the stump.

This is also how that large one in the background of the first picture was.

The wood from this will need to cure for a while before we do anything with it.

Now I have to figure out what to do about the stumps.

Always something :-)

A Big Project Completed~ falling trees

Sometime back,

I mentioned that I had difficulty in cutting trees on our place.

There was one in particular that Mr. LB was not fond of.

It's a pine (which I love) that happened to grow in a very unfortunate spot.

Behind our shop and lean-to where the wood is,

there is an area that once had a falling down, rotting, wooden garage/barn

and two still houses as well as various scruff trees and brush.

The still houses went shortly after moving in 15 years ago.

The barn went about 5 years ago.

Gradually, we have cleaned up the area in hopes to park back here.

The only problem was - trees.

There was a huge cottonwood on the neighbors side that would

drop limbs, branches, leaves, and those sticky pods.

Then there was also our crooked pine tree.

I don't have a picture of the cottonwood while standing, but
you'll see the large rounds.

Now, usually if I consent to fall a tree, Mr. LB is immediately there with

chainsaw in hand, zip-zip like you would see in a cartoon.

These were a little different.

The neighbor's cottonwood was at least 4 feet in diameter at the base and

leaned in the direction of our shop.

Our pine was not as large, but leaned toward the neighbor's house.

Long story short (sorta) with proper notching,

jacks, pully system, and tractors, the trees fell towards the river

with no injury to any structure or person.

Here is the cottonwood already fallen, and the pine fell right behind it.

Then there was some cleaning up so the stump could be removed, and

the trees could be pulled from the river.

If we were to leave them, they were big enough that they would

most likely cause damage down river - not what we want.

It took some doing as the tree was well rooted, but 'we' finally got it.

It left quite the divot.

There it goes.

 And here's what remains.  You can see the cottonwood stump in
the upper right hand corner.

The neighbor is great on his tractors and back filled pretty well.

Then came getting those monsters out of the river.

This is the base of the pine.

Deciding the best way to lift them up and pull them out at the same time.

After much maneuvering. . .

And by the time Mr. LB was packing up, here's what it looked like.
Over by the lean-to are the fence panels that were removed in order
to fall the trees.

After a couple evenings, of moving gravel around and bucking up
the remaining logs, we finally got to park back here.
I didn't get a picture of it cleaned up before we started moving rigs
back here.  And yep, we have old rigs.
We don't worry about scratches and such when we go get wood
or haul things.  (These are both 4WD & not our daily drivers.) 

We'll get one more load of gravel at some point since there is still a dip
where the stump was, but it's so nice to have it all cleaned up.
Out front can now be cleaned up since there's nothing parked there now.

Until next time,
Nimble Fingers and Even Stitches