Chipping Away

There was a big tree near the house, overhanging the roof, at the north-west corner.

 It had some virtues.  It gave shade and coolness on a hot day.  And a tree, a good-sized tree, is a fine thing.  This box elder though had become too large for its position and was shading out garden areas and needing regular attention to keep its branches off the roof and its leaves out of the gutters. Time to remove it, we decided.

It was quite a challenging task.  The box elder was perhaps twenty metres high and close to the house and other small buildings, fruit trees and gardens.  Its spread was substantial and it could not be dropped entire without rearranging its surroundings a little more than would be comfortable.  I have felled quite a few big trees and cut them up but this was not straightforward.

The only option was to take it down, piece by piece, and that's what I set out to do.  Anne wasn't sure and wanted to get a man in to do the job.  "I am that man!" I said, and got into it. It's one of the pleasures of living on a small farm that you get opportunities to take on meaty projects that demand some thought, planning and physical application to achieve.  If you chip away and don't be in a rush, you can usually work your way through things (or at least muddle your way through!)

What tools did I have to use?  I had a long handled, telescopic in fact, pruning saw that extended out to around 4 metres.  I had a good medium-sized Stihl chainsaw.  I had a variety of ladders. With some cunning and care I thought I could remove the tree without damaging the house and surrounds or myself.

The first effort was to clear the branches over the house and lighter branches around the tree.  The pole saw was useful, sometimes from the ground and often several metres up the extension ladder.  Tedious, quite tiring at times working above your head, but gradually the worst were removed.  

Now it got interesting.  Those big branches that forked out some way off the ground had to be cut while up the ladder, and that's always a touch edgy.  It was difficult to get in a comfortable, reasonably safe position for some cuts. I put a tensioned wire on several to make sure they fell in the right direction but that wasn't effective.  As the branches fell, slowly at first, the tension dissipated before the line of fall was definite, causing some excitement.  One headed for the house, ("...Oh, dash it all!" I said ) but only flicked the guttering,  bouncing it around but doing no major harm.  That got Anne out of her seat inside, wide-eyed, checking things out from the back door.  Another rather vertical one teetered for some time and needed me to hop off the ladder and go  and pull on the wire a few times before it veered right, startling and brushing the garden shed and grape fence,  but fortunately doing no damage.

Each branch required thought and planning.  Sometimes I had to get the pole saw out again to change the loading of smaller branches so I could drop the limb where I wanted.   The last one I needed to cut this way was high and over the roof.  I ended up on a step ladder to get a working angle.  Interestingly, this branch didn't just fold down once I cut through enough, but the twiggy end seemed to catch for a moment and the butt pendulumed back past the trunk and banged aside the extension ladder leaning there to end up a couple of metres past the base.  I had tried to cut from that extension ladder before moving out to the stepladder to get a better angle. There are always risks and surprises when cutting things down. 

But I worked my way through the last branches until yesterday I dropped the last one and  here we are now.

I still have some cutting and processing to do, but the challenging stuff is done.  We have a good heap of firewood, some large piles of prunings to munt up in a chipper soon for good mulch and more space and light in a strategic place.  It does feel good to get to this point!   I'm pleased.

I'm also removing some chook pens and have opened up some more space in behind for garden and fruit trees. More on that later.  Meanwhile the stump has a sculptural value, I'm sure you'll agree.  ;)