Had several trees fall across the trails when Debby came through. This maple was the largest and most irritating as it was at the western most creek crossing. Obviously rotten at the bottom but was hanging on too tight to just pull it off the stump. Couldn’t tell exactly how much of it was rotten and how much was still solid so cutting on it was a little dicey. Whittled on the solid part (on the backside) and pulled. Whittled some more and pulled again. Wouldn’t budge. Eventually decided the risk/reward was no longer making sense so advised the only two others that might care to stay clear of it until it came down. Wife asked if I was planning to leave it there for the next two years until it rotted down. Told her I was planning to leave it there for the next two storms and if it hadn’t moved, I’d cut a couple of small trees nearby to get enough clearance to throw a rope up toward the top to see about breaking the limbs that had it hung but if we could avoid that, we would.
Came back the next day on the way to clear a couple other trees blocking trails and it looked like the below pic (minus the chain). It had fallen about half off the stump.
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Irritatingly, it has a pretty descent sized poison ivy vine in it. Not much excited about processing it for firewood while that’s still fresh and sappy. I’m not severely allergic but not immune either.
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A snatch block to double line pull successfully separated it from the stump. The chain is a Grade 70 3/8” that is always on the Farmi for stuff like this where the Farmi chokers are either too short (they were way short on this one) or it’s a snatch block pull where a higher capacity chain is preferable.
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A reset for a single line pull inline with the tree pulled it out of the tree it was hung in and mostly out of the path. A little chainsaw work after it was on the ground got it into grapple sized pieces. Will probably go back to retrieve it for firewood this fall or winter when the poison ivy is mostly dried and the tree has lightened up a good bit. All but the very bottom was solid so there’s a good bit of useful wood there.
Before the winch, these type hung trees were a real pain to deal with. Although I’ve done it many times, I’ve never much liked taking them on with just a saw. Rigging up ropes and chains with snatch blocks, etc. to drawbar pull them is certainly viable but it takes a lot longer than setting up a winch pull. Between the grapple and winch I was able to clear this tree, one other single tree, and a cluster of one pine about the size of the maple plus about a half dozen smaller trees it took down with it in just over two hours. Back when the 9N was the only tractor we could get across the creek, that same work would have taken at least two days, a lot more sweat, and a lot more danger. Even if we could get the Farmall over there it wouldn’t be much better than the Ford. Sometimes it still feels like cheating working with the L.
