I'm really falling off the wagon. Days and days go by without an update, however, here goes ...
Sandy continues work on the deck but has been interrupted by rain. The front and kitchen side are now complete, only the back left to do. She doesn't have enough stain to complete - it's actually on back order, as she found out yesterday in Sudbury - but she can get some more done.
For days we (David, Pat Martin, Jason and I) have been puzzling over a broken tree hanging over the barn. Either the butt end or the branches could come down on the roof as it was broken about 20' over the roof and the brush end hanging into an oak tree. If it fell by itself in any way, it would hit the roof and do damage.
Gavin helped by getting a string over the middle of the falling over section first trying an arrow and then with the slingshot. The slingshot did the trick, using fishing line, over both the middle of that section and close to the break. We then pulled up heavier string and then a rope to both places. Pause for a couple of days ...
Pat Martin came over on Saturday; David and Jason assisted; Vanda and Kim were videographers. David helped me get some pieces of plywood over all that section of roof in case an errant broken branch came straight down. Jason attached his ATC to mine; I was attached to the rope. We opted to first try pulling at the middle as I had tied the butt end rope to an adjacent tree hoping that it would stay there as we pulled the middle off quickly away from the oak.
Roar ! we took off with the ATC's. Bad planning Jason ran into a tree, did some damage to his ATC that has now been repaired. The pull not only moved the branch away from the oak, but snapped the tree perhaps 20' down from the break and the entire assembly fell to the ground. Yikes re Jason. Yikes re tree .. we never dreamed that it was weaker midway up to the break than at the actual break. However, all was well. Move on.
Then it was time to tackle the standing dead maple just down from the barn driveway. David used the long heavy ladder and attached a rope as high as possible. I attached that to the X5 parked on the down-slope past the garage. Using the weight of the car, tension was added and then pull, as Pat cut the base of the tree with the chainsaw. At first it looked like it might angle slightly towards the garden but down it came, right on the money.
Now for the hard work ... Pat and I started cutting; David and Vanda hauled brush to the end of the road. We were through by noon; a fine day's work.
After getting cleaned up, I got the chainsaw out again and cut up the pieces of the tree behind the barn. They are stacked in the little trailer, ready for splitting.
What next ? Splitting of course. Some of the pieces were humongous, no way that I could lift them. My expectation had been to wait for Graham but I happened on another solution - with a trolley jack beside the splitter, roll a piece onto the jack, crank it up and balance it on the jack until it was leaning on the splitter, hoist onto the splitter. Done. I had to do that with about a dozen pieces. At this point all the big pieces are split, a good days work.
That brings us up-to-date, blog-wise. There's still a bunch of splitting to do - the behind-the-barn tree and all the smaller pieces of the big maple. Smaller, in this case, is only relative. There are some sizeable pieces there.
Next step, after splitting ? Move wood from the woodshed down to the woodbox close to the house. That'll take care of a couple of cords. Jason will take another dry cord. That will leave room in the woodshed to stack the wood from the two trees.
I have at least another 3 big maples to take down, maybe more. I'm not going to run out of wood anytime soon. I could also do a run or two out to the logging operation and harvest some smaller stuff. I might just do that this fall.
Tomorrow we had to Toronto for some R&R. Well, not much. We'll get down there in time for an outdoor meal somewhere and then hit the St. Lawrence Market in the a.m. Sandy has an 11am hair appointment. My hair is still growing - 5 months now ? Another two and we'll be back in Florida and I can decide what to do from there.
Onward!
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