Thread: Dead radiata pines

My saga of cleaning up the dead radiatas finally ended today. Apart from the normal blood sacrifice any job demands nowadays (hate this old-man fragile skin!), I'm happy to report that there were no mishaps.

In the end, I took down the 13 trees that died on our property, plus another 4 on the neighbor's side, that had the capacity to do some serious damage to life & property if they decided to blow over the wrong way in a storm. This clump in particular contained 4 trees on our side, and 4 trees on the neighbors side, all within uncomfortable proximity to the garden shed & my work shed to the right: Clump2a.jpg

But I'm pleased to report they all fell over where they were supposed to, and buildings remain intact: Clump2b.jpg

The neighbor's trees were in a little corner of their property where no-one ever ventures, so I just chopped the trunks into manageable sizes & rolled them down the gully: Collateral.jpg

It's a pity I used up all of my enthusiasm for milling on the first couple I took down, the butt on the left in the pic above is 4.5M long, & about 500mm diameter with very little taper. If anyone close to me who has an Alaskan mill or slabber & wants to mill it, they are welcome to it. There is some blue-stain, but the wood looks very sound otherwise.

Sure looks different in our yard now. There's a few dozen billets to split for fire-pit wood, but it's all pretty tidy: Clump1a.jpg Clump1b.jpg

It was a monumental job & I'm mighty pleased it's over, but it was getting downright dangerous to go near the trees - I took to wearing my hard-hat when mowing if there was the slightest wind......

Cheers,

Ian

Looks like a win to me. Yard was made safe, yard was tidied, a small supply of pine boards were obtained and no body was killed in the process. Oh yes, and one sore back! I think that is unavoidable as we don't use the chainsaw all day long. Irrespective of too many birthdays we are utilising muscles normally left sleeping.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

..... and one sore back!....

I wish it were only the back, Paul! Arms & shoulders have muscled in on the act too (pun intended).

But yes indeed, Mrs. W's little boy is one very happy chap tonight & rewarded himself with an extra glass of red. You saw the trees & the potential for disaster, so you can appreciate more than anyone else how relieved I am that nothing went badly astray. I should also fess up that I went against your maxim of "if in doubt, aim down-hill" on one of the last trees because after gazing at it from umpteen angles for 10 minutes I couldn't tell which way it was weighted. I eventually decided it might be ever-so-slightly biased to go up hill & scarfed it accordingly. However, I was wrong - this was the second tree that sat stock-still when I'd cut to within 5mm of the scarf & refused to go anywhere! Fortunately, there was not even a hint of a wind to complicate matters & a couple of wedges persuaded it to go precisely where I wanted it...

And on a good note to end, I chucked some old files into the pile of branches & offcuts I was burning last night, & raked 4 nicely annealed bits of steel out of the ashes this morning. They'll eventually be re-purposed into something(s) more useful. Two came out a bit curved, either because they bent under their own weight, or something sat on them while they were red-hot, but that won't be much of a problem to deal with.

Ian

Great thread, very interesting read
Funny, I read the first post, then scrolled up to see if your age was listed. Wow!!! 75!!
Hope I can still do that sort of work at that vintage, Well done, keep it up
Sincerely
Willy
Spring chicken at 56

I must confess Will, it ain't as much fun as it was when I was 56. But save the admiration for my old dad, he was still milling in his 80s - with a Hagan saw!! My paltry efforts pale beside that....

Cheers,