All is not
fun and games when you live in the forest, so we decided to take a day off and
attend to some projects that George needed to get to. Roxanne had left earlier
in the morning to help celebrate her mother’s 101st birthday in
South Carolina, so George and I were left unsupervised.
In a tree’s
‘circle of life’, there comes a time when it stops growing and it slowly
transforms into dead wood. Regardless of whether or not a falling tree makes a sound in
the woods when there’s no one around to hear it, if that tree is hanging
directly over your vehicle you’re going to notice it when it falls.
With that in
mind, the first order of business was to get rid of a dead limb from a very
tall tree next to the driveway. The limb was about 30’ in the air directly over
George’s van. The plan was to get a rope around the limb, attach the rope to a
steel cable, connect the cable to the rear of the van, and then pull the limb
from the tree.
We tied some
string to a piece of an old rubber bushing so that we could throw it over the
limb. Since I was visiting from out of town, George let me be the one to climb
onto the top of the van and begin tossing the string. On the third try we got
the string over the branch, tied the string to some rope, and pulled it over. In short order, we had the cable hooked up to the van and it was
time to bring down the limb.
View looking
up the driveway.
Close up of
limb.
Arrow denotes
flight of limb downward.
This was such
a success that we decided to bring down an entire tree located a short distance away. It was not a threat to
any structures, but it represented good potential firewood for the coming
winter months. The tree was about 60’ tall and it had already fallen into some
other trees, leaving it leaning at a 45 degree angle to the ground. We brought
this one down with no problem.
Then there
was one more dead tree to attend to. This one was on a hillside across the
stream from camp. It was not accessible by vehicle, so it was up to George to
bring it down with his battery powered chain saw. The tree was about 60’ to 70’
tall and the top of it was resting against another tree leaning toward the camp at a 45
degree angle, with the base of it anchored on the hillside. George began
cutting near the base, thinking that this would dislodge the top of the tree
and it would fall away from camp against the hill.
Instead, each
time he removed a section of the base, the bottom of the tree began to swing
slightly down slope. This made the entire tree become more vertical, although
it was still firmly wedged against other trees at the top. After a couple more cuts, it looked like the next one would bring the tree safely down against
the hillside.
Just as
George pulled the chainsaw away from the tree, the base began a slow pendulum
swing toward the camp. As the tree became perpendicular to the ground, it
dropped down the slope a few feet. Then, to our utter amazement, the top of the
tree began a slow arc down toward the camp! Starting slowly, but ending
quickly, the tree crashed to the ground inches from the camp structures. Who
would have thought the camp was only about 60’ away from where we’d been
cutting? It’s a good thing Roxanne wasn’t there to witness this!
We cleared
the debris from in and around the stream, cut and stacked the wood, and
congratulated ourselves on our narrow escape from disaster.
That left one
final chore: a huge granite boulder at the back of the driveway sitting about a
foot away from where George really wanted it to be. Notwithstanding our
considerable collective physical strength, this thing was way too big for the two of us to
move. Channeling our inner-Archimedes, we decided to use levers to move it.
After a few minutes of trial and error, the rock was in its proper place and we
called it a day.
Next: Hike to
Douglas Falls and Beyond
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