Dead trees

[johnridley]

The local theater needed a dead tree for a prop, and we happened to have one. They came and got it yesterday. Fine, though I hadn't realized they were just going to show up and cut it, I'd have left some instructions. Unfortunately, the guy who cut it down cut it almost flush with the ground, so it's impossible to pull. ARGH. Now I am going to have to spend many hours digging and cutting roots instead of about an hour soaking the ground and just pulling.

I already nearly broke the car's windshield because the chain snapped on a pull attempt. Pulling by the roots is almost impossible compared to pulling by the trunk a couple of feet up.

From now on, **I** cut the trees around here.

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

How big a tree is it? I can grub out a stump of a tree maybe 4 or 5 inches in diameter at ground level in under an hour, using a small spade, a keyhole saw and my bare hands.

I remember my dad pulling the bumper of my mom's car trying to pull a tree stump in our yard in Illinois.

K.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

It's about 12 or 14 inches in diameter. It was about a 20 foot high tree. It has single roots that are 4 inches in diameter.

So far I've been digging at it for about 3 hours, and cut out most of the roots, but if the last few birches I've pulled out are indicative, there is another star of roots down about 18 inches. I have yet to dig to those. Thankfully birches don't have taproots.

I've pulled plenty of trees with the minivan. You shouldn't try it unless you have a proper hitch; pulling from the bumper is just going to go wrong.

It's also a mistake to cut the tree off close to the ground; the only good way to pull a tree is to be able to fasten the chain up a couple of feet so the tree levers itself out of the ground. Pulling by the base is about like attaching the chain to a few tons of concrete.

If you can attach up high, pulling trees is not a big deal. But if not, it's almost impossible even if I had a much bigger chain and a large tractor.