So on Sunday, we used the Swede saw, an ax, and steady resolve to remove the pesky tree. The before picture shows the position of the tree before we began the task.
There was a lot more to the job than I thought. The usual case. We took the tree down in two pieces so we wouldn't chance dropping it through the neighbors' window. The first cut wasn't too hard. The part of the tree ten feet in the air was skinny enough to yield to the Swede saw. The bottom half took a well placed notch, some well aimed ax blows and some sweat, but in the end we won. UH was pretty good at hitting the tree with the ax blade.
There are a lot of branches and leaves on a tree this size, but we were able to cut them to a size to fit into the Matrix to haul away. It took two loads, but we got the tree to the recycling site. And it was free for Ramsey County residents to drop it off.
After the cleanup, the area looks like it'll be okay.
The stump of the wayward maple. It's hacked up a bit, but I'll clean that up before I'm completely finished with the chore.
The only casualty of the project was the ax handle. UH had a single wayward smack of the ax and the back part of the handle separated from itself. It's a really old ax, so I'll have to try to repair it somehow. It used to belong to Abe Lincoln. Except there have been eight new handles and two new heads.
That's a long way to go to inject this old story into my blog, but I'm pretty pleased with the whole process.
5 comments:
I wish I had known you were doing this beforehand - our new house will have a fire pit and I would have taken the (admittedly quite green) wood to stock our wood pile.
Still, looks like a job well done.
I was waiting for the Abe Lincoln's axe story, as soon as I read there was an axe involved.
You and Gino cut down a large number of sumac with a swede saw two summers ago, as I recall. So your skills weren't all that rusty.
Good job.
Sorry, Emily, the Ramsey County recycle center has taken possession of all the wood. I'll keep you in mind if I fell another tree.
Wow, two loads, impressive.
I think I own that same axe. Although right at this moment I cannot seem to locate either the handle OR the head.
That doesn't mean it isn't here, though.
Looks like you got that done relatively clean and quickly! That stump though, are you going to dig it out manually or hire a stump removal service? Could go down farther then you think.
Keep it up!!
-Oscar Valencia
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