Blowdown cleanup has been the order of the day. Did road clearing for a cell tower on the property. We had a few hemlocks and other trees coming down on the road, and a major blow down with a mix of Tamarac and red maple. , there were two 16" diameter maples and one to two 12" or so maples.
The kubota saved me with the tamarac (second picture, tree in the middle) I couldn't cut the supporting branches without risking the tree rolling on me. I was able to grab a branch with the grapple and pull, this helped roll the tree and drop it to the ground. Like the tamarack, at least one maple also wanted to slide to the right (down towards the stump), and again a nudge of the grapple saved me from risky work. It also let me just grab logs and move them aside so I wouldn't have to buck them all and move by hand. I measured a few logs by doing partial cuts at 16" just to get a feel for the lengths I wanted. This was a huge time and energy saver! This part of the road was past a steep hill that was slick and I only had a short window before it became impassible. I was dead tired towards the end, so any grapple work was a godsend.
The work took 5 hours to get the blow down and 3 other trees cleared. I finished just at dusk. This summer I'll be back for the rest of the wood and a few other large maples the storm blew over.
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Nothing more fun than hitting the grapple close button and crunching the tamarak that tried to kill you.
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