Men and their toys

You all know how much men love their toys, ever since Bruce got his new chainsaw, he lives to cut down a tree. We noticed a BIG, TALL ash tree that was WAY TOO CLOSE to our shed had died. It is on the edge of our grove, leaning a bit to the south east.

Bruce decided to wait for a strong north wind before cutting it so it would fall in a fairly free area.

BUT - Sunday we had a strong south wind and he decided to take advantage of it and drop the tree into the grove. So he fired up his chain saw and notched it on the north side and proceeded to cut across from the notch.

Then the tree settled backwards, the WRONG WAY, and pinned the blade of the saw!! YIKES!!

(All the while I am peeking out the kitchen door every so often to see how he is progressing, I figured it was the safest place to be.)

Bruce tugged, cursed, wiggled, muttered, well, I know I wasn't there but I've been there before, pulled, tugged, wiggled. Stood back and surveyed the situation, went back to trying to get the @#!@$!! saw out of the tree. And sweating just a little bit as the tree swayed back and forth.

FINALLY!! The saw came loose and Bruce stepped out of the line of fire to watch the tree. A big gust of wind made the tree topple toward the grove, "GO TREE GO!!"

Then it swayed back to the SOUTH, "NO TREE NO!!" Creating much angst to the lumber jack, sweating the thought of the tree falling on our nice shed.

This vigil went on for nearly an hour, every now and then Bruce would tippy toe over to the tree and saw on it before retreating. Finally he told me the only thing he could think of, was to cut ANOTHER BIG, TALL  ash tree that was still alive, so it would fall north, hit the other and like a domino, topple it into the grove. I was not in agreement with that scenario at all. I could just see the same thing happening and have TWO BIG, TALL trees swaying back and forth and refusing to fall.

All of a sudden there was a big crash, I looked out to see the tree had twisted, ripped off the trunk and fallen south, right into the other tree that thankfully Bruce didn't turn the saw onto.

 

This is not the classic tree felling operation.

 

There is the shed, thankfully unscathed.

 

The tree holding up the other tree from doing any damage on the ground.

 

Too close, way too close.

 

But all is well, Bruce didn't even have to come in and change clothes, but he did need a long drink of water for his cottonmouth.