Looking at my calendar you can take a big black marker and cross out great swaths of September. This means two things: First, whatever firewood I fail to amass right now will be set in stone for the winter and we’ll surely freeze. Second, you’ve totally messed up my garage’s pinup calendar. Now I’m going to have frozen pipes and a messed up calendar. You monster!
First, a win; a speedy turnaround. We had a killer windstorm. That wasn’t a win… in fact it sucked. It took out the power, blew some trees down, and freaked out the duck. But I’m all about finding the silver lining in a shit sandwich so a tree that fell on the lawn was in my sights. Four days after the wind trashed the tree I had it whacked and stacked on the pony trailer. The following weekend it was in the woodshed. It wasn’t a big tree but I was pleased with the fast transition. I’ve occasionally left a tree mouldering in the yard for years. Getting one “cleaned up” in 11 calendar days is the kind of epic efficiency usually reserved for retired men. Not bad.
Next came a Gordian knot that’s not yet solved. In my forest the wind really tore up everything. Of interest was a nice overstory tree. It split 30′ off the ground. Half still stands, a bit asymmetrical but likely to last a while. I’d like to retain it. The other half came down willy nilly into a stand of thrifty young trees. It sent several of them to Valhalla and suspended itself on broken and bent and killed and live trees alike. It even speared a few limbs straight into the ground like fenceposts. All this and it never fully released itself from its trunk of origin.
It’s a great kinetic tensioned web of doom with a deadfall mass hovering 10 feet above my head. It’s a mousetrap fit to kill a musk ox.
I spent a few hours nibbling at the edges. Nipping a branch here SPRONG and releasing a limb there SNAP. Several telephone pole sized trees were still firmly rooted but bent at unnatural angles by the behemoth above. I’d slip in, fire up my chainsaw, make a few surgical cuts, and watch as a severed bole or removed top would break free and make the whole mess shift and twist in hard to discern patterns above my head.
It’s three dimensional chess and I haven’t yet gotten the beast tamed.
After a couple hours I’d had enough time with a gargantuan sword of Damocles weighing on my mind. I shut down the saw and put it far out of the danger zone. Then I slipped in and out with the ATV’s winch cable. I grabbed what I could and dragged bits of limb and trunks away where it was safer. What a relief that I didn’t bring down a mountain on whatever idiocy I’ve got under my hard hat.
This is not the first time I’ve wished for a different tool in the toolbox. Something crude and simple and cheap that would separate the busted mess from the bole without jeopardizing man or machine. Time for a rant:
“There are occasional times and places where releasing kinetic energy is best done from afar. Like 200 yards and three minutes away from the excitement. There is a cheap technology for doing that. It’s called dynamite and in times of yore it was no big deal. Now, our regulated urban society thinks such things are the stuff of Wile E Coyote cartoons and terrorist jackwits.
Latte sipping urbanite shitheads can’t imagine my world but I’m stuck with their regulations. It’s not just me, it’s thousands of us. Any man who’s crawling around beneath twenty tons of suspended unforgiving physics because a $9 stick of BOOM scares the squares is in his own little purgatory.
In a just world every pansy that posits a regulation that denies an honest redneck the tools of his trade would be forced to get out there and face it himself. Don’t like the idea of gap toothed yokels playing with noisy destructive toys? Then get off your trust funder’s ass and knock down a couple tons of tensioned mass with an iPad or an English degree or whatever tools with which you’re comfortable. Getting corkscrewed into the soil would be a teaching moment and keep you from making my life hell. Eventually I’d be able to by dynamite at WalMart; as God intended.”
But I digress. I swore a few oaths and backed off. Give it a few weeks in the wind and see if it “settles”.
The next day was cold and misty. Fuck it! Are we not men? I stood in the mist and split some of the wood. The mist got worse. I was almost done. By then it was raining. Bah, it’s just a little rain. I started tossing firewood in the trailer. All I wanted to do was clear up some of the stuff I’d already cut. The ran worsened. I positioned the trailer. It was getting windy too but I only had a small amount left to do.
By the time I was done stacking firewood I was in a full on downpour. I managed to top off the pile. I’m up to two full cords. Roughly 8,000 pounds. The equivalent of five smart cars stacked in the woodshed, all done by hand. Not enough for winter but more than I’d started with.
As I sloshed toward the house I glanced at the forest, now obscured by the rain. Maybe the wind will bring down my 60′ tall Jenga Game. Maybe not. I’ll think about it some other day.
A friend of mine lived on a tobacco farm. His dad wanted to clear a row of stumps in an old fenceline to join two fields into one big one. Since he couldn’t buy dynamite, he used fertilizer (Aeroprills, IIRC) empty javex bottles, a post hole digger and diesel fuel to blast the stumps free.
That was about 33 years ago, today he’d be arrested.
Al_in_Ottawa
Pyrodex, brother. Doesn’t quite have the oomph of dynamite, but she’ll get the job done & you can buy it.
Dynamite? Naw, you need Det-cord.
The tree tangle you described I’ve always called a widow maker. A very truthful name.
How about stand off about 25 yards and use some high power lead projectiles?
Sometimes what is left requires a skidder, a long cable and some good chokers to do the work with any expectation of safety.
I had one that was partly broken and I made a bad cut that didn’t let it fall but I couldn’t find a safe way to cut more, my plan was to go buy some Tanerite and break it free from a safe distance. I didn’t get to try it though the next morning before I got out to go find some we had enough wind that it broke free on it’s own, and it fell in a way that would have likely killed me if I was there cutting when it let loose.
+1 on the det cord
Some rat bastard beat me to the det cord recommendation 😀
Excellent stuff. One of the few things I remember fondly from my time in the .mil
And I’m sure I’ll find some at the hardware store in town.
Just use your friggin’ time machine, man! Do we have to figure out EVERYTHING for you?
If you’da just kept Spike, HE could have torn it down for you in NO time. Just tell him a squirrel was in there somewhere…
}:-]
I’ve got a pole pruner. I use it for such jobs. Yeah it won’t cut though a lot and it is tedious but it works, especially when what I am cutting is under a lot of tension, as it usually is. But about the rant, yeah…
While primacord would be the best solution, might I suggest that horsepower solves most problems and learning to fly would be a most excellent side effect?
You’re welcome.
Nice idea but out of my budget. If I had that kind of money hanging around I’d build a 60′ fighting robot with chainsaw arms.
You could always call Frank and ask him to come over with his workers and their toys…
}:-]
Frank’s gear could do the job but then I’d have Frank on my property.
Everyone thinks lightsabres are for fighting. I know they will be invented by some guy trying to make his wood gathering easier.
When I was a kid and saw Star Wars for the first time that was one of my first thoughts!
Oh, come on now! You know very well you thought they were invented to make it easier for those guys who can’t unhook a bra…
}:-]
Well, it isn’t all THAT hard to get a limited user explosives permit from the ATF for what you would need, however I suspect that you don’t want to go through the process with the paperwork and background check it would involve. The cost is only $25 for the initial and $12 per year for renewal.
Tannerite. Sold at most gun stores and even ACE Hardware and Truevalue stores carry it.
Bad location for shooting. Far enough above the ground that I’m not happy about sending a high power bullet at it.
Can you set off Tannerite with a shotgun? That would be less of a problem than firing a rifle in the air.
A shotgun would be ideal if it can detonate Tannerite. I’ve never used Tannerite. Anyone out there know if a shotgun will do the trick?
I have not (yet) used it – I have some, both the regular version and the more sensitive rimfire version. The types I have, a competitor to Tannerite, the regular version requires 2,000 fps to set off and the rimfire version only 1,000 fps – Since most shotgun shells are over 1,000 fps and under 2,000 fps, I would think the rimfire might work and the regular might not.
I don’t think shot gun will do it for Tanerite their FAQ says 2000 FPS minimum. There are some different targets that are more sensitive and will go off from a .22 those might work.