Gang Aft Agley

More wood chopping. The boys and I set out to pull down a large tree that was standing dead. Only problem was that it was in an enclosed space, that we didnt want to have anything destroyed.

I threw a rope around a fork it it and we used the rope to help guide the fall into the crook of another tree, preventing it from smashing any fences on the way down. I also cut it low on that side, to have it fall where we wanted but the rope was just extra insurance. After tying the rope off to a large tree out of the way I had the boys hang from it as I cut the last side of the tree, as it started to slowly fall, they ducked behind that tree, putting three trees between them and the falling one. Unforunately it wasnt as dramatic as we hoped and we ended up with the tree still standing, just no longer connected to the stump.

Caden wandered inside at this point no longer interested, He took kiay in with him, she had been sitting watching me. Keigan and I got busy trying to figure out how to get the tree down, we cut out the branch it was leaning in, no luck, other branches were still holding it up. Finally keigan suggested cutting it agin, so we cut it about four feet up, and ended up with a seriosly disjointed tree that somehow still stood. A couple of running jumps at the cut, and we had it slowly straighten back up, the four foot section was now leaning. Keigan saved the day with his idea of fetching the hatchets. We toook turn chopping at the tree, rounding out where it was stuck so that it would slide. Finally it dropped down, and we had a standing tree four feet shorter than at the stare, and about four feet east of its original position.

Repeat last few steps and we had a tree standing defiantly, now about ten feet shorter than at the start. At this point I could reach the major fork, and was able to get half of the tree to fall, missing the fences as planned.

Keigan and I left it at that point, with the tree that will not fall still standing waiting for us to finish it off.

Next we turned our attention to splitting the logs that we had managed to obtain, Keigan and Caden( started ito them with the hatchets, while I used the maul to split others. After we were all severely winded, and me sure that my back would ache on the morrow, we called it quits, and headed in defeated.

Round two to be later in the week.

after refreshments we headed out back to scope out the pecans, see how many were left, and mow a trail to the trees. The homeschool group is coming over tomorrow to pick pecans. I hope they get enough, I am not sure how long they will last on the trees, Thanksgiving looks like a long time to hold out hope for. But perhaps as I drive the tractor to the back we will fing more trees, until now the poison ivy has slowed our exploration to those far corners.