The bigger they come, the harder they... get stuck.
I should preface all of these tales with a blanket statement- I’m very good with tools, can fix or build just about anything I set my mind to, am a fanatic about doing things myself (which is why I’m also a good cook and can do all my own housework), and am generally very competent. Which is why when I make a mistake, it tends to be a beauty.

My parents’ house in the Adirondacks is a chalet type building, surrounded by lots of trees and overlooking a lake. (I’ll post pictures at some point.) They have taken pains to maintain the trees fairly close to the house and all the way to the shore so that their house isn’t very visible from the lake, and as this was a stand of mature forest when they bought it the trees tend to be enormous and old, consisting of birch, beech and hemlock with a few maples thrown in.

As I grew up there, we heated the house with wood. This means that I’m very used to operating a chainsaw and dropping trees, and in fact went to forestry school. Taking down a tree is old hat to me. So when Dad mentioned that there was a birch that was almost dead that he needed to take down sometime, my ears pricked up. He and Mom were going out of town for the day and my sisters and their husbands were around, so we all agreed that we should take out the tree for him. I had the know-how and plenty of willing muscle, so it should be easy.

We hooked up some ropes to it and winched it with two come-alongs to pull it in the direction we wanted it to go in, which was a good precaution as it was fairly close to the building and very large. I eyeballed the tree and saw that it was not quite leaning in the right direction, but I knew how to handle that- basically you cut the hinge wider on one side so it will fall in that direction. No problem, as it was leaning away from the building anyway.

I cut the notch, set aside the chainsaw and checked my aim- all looked fine. I started on the back cut, Dad’s Stihl roaring as it bit into the wood, my siblings pulling mightily on the ropes to add tension, and the tree starts moving in the right direction, so I step back-

-and the goddam thing got hung up between a beech and a maple.

Picture it. This tree is about two feet in diameter, green hardwood (weighs a fucking ton), sixty feet tall, leaning at about thirty degrees from upright, held at one end by a lot of tangled branches and at the other by a splintered strip of wood about three inches thick. Is it stable? Is it about to fall and smash someone flat? How the fuck can you tell?

We consulted, and decided that I should take a chunk off of the bottom of the tree. I started out by cutting up from the bottom about a third of the way, then started cutting down from the top. When it starts to pinch shut it should break off at that point, just as I had been taught. Only, of course, it didn’t- it pinched shut on the bar of the saw, hard.

Now I’ve got a potentially lethal tree hanging on by two narrow strips of wood at the bottom and branches at the top, and my father’s expensive chainsaw stuck in the middle.

Fuck.

So I went to the tool shed and got out a scissor jack and had by brothers-in-law bring some scrap lumber. I set up the jack to push up on the cut and began cranking, all the while picturing the thing abruptly giving way at the bottom so that the branches at the top push the trunk backward like God’s own battering ram and landing on a sister or two. Seldom have I sweated as I did then- but the saw finally slid out. I moved it out of the way and eased the jack back down and got it out of the way, then took a breath and started the chainsaw again. I went back to cutting from the bottom, tensed up and ready to spring back when it moved, and sure enough it worked- the bottom of the tree sprang loose, the stump end hitting the ground with a thud like T. Rex stomping a chihuahua, and I waited for the crash.

Which never came.

“Where’s the kaboom?” I said. “There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!”

Nope. Still hung up. FUCK!

I ordered everyone back out of the way and started cutting from the bottom again, about four feet up the log from the last one. This time I did the top cut first and went up from beneath, again sweating as I envisioned the remaining fifty feet of yellow birch landing on me- but again, I danced back as it slammed the ground, and saw that it was changing angle quickly so I leaped farther back as it hit the ground in a satisfying crunch.

I then shut off the saw and drank an entire beer in one breath.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 3 Apr 2008, 19:35, 3 replies)

Were waiting!
*taps fingers on desk*
( girlinthehole, Thu 3 Apr 2008, 21:06, closed)

You're right, you were waiting. *ducks*
I'll recite a favorite saying of one of my forestry professors- "Patience is a virtue, possess it if you can- never in a woman, and seldom in a man!"
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 3 Apr 2008, 21:23, closed)

*Click*
Marvin the Martian references win. Lots :)

*clicks*
(Fleximus Rex briefly gave up lurking on, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 2:26, closed)