RSKY
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2003
- Messages
- 2,479
- Tractor
- Kioti CK20S
My mother had a couple trees slowly die after the 2009 ice storm. They are in her back yard and the trees have stood and deteriorated until they were unsafe to be around. Every time I mentioned getting rid of them she refused saying I would get hurt and to leave them alone and the wind would knock them over. About a week ago an extremely large limb, or fork of the trunk, broke off and fell against another tree. This is what is called DANGEROUS! My wife could not help due to a foot problem so I enlisted my older sister and we brought it and the trees down. Had to do this or Mom, who is ninety, would have tried to do something herself. Pictures below.
So I threw a rope over the limb and pulled a cable up and over it. The only part that scared me was getting on a ladder to loop the cable around itself so it would grip the limb. You can see the cable in the pictures. Then we strung out 150' of log chain and attached our heavy duty come-a-long to it and another tree. As you can see below this is a large tool that has chain instead of cable. Picture below.
Pulling on that come-a-long exhausted me. But it is a strong tool and one complete pull only moves the chain a quarter link.
Here is the limb on the ground.
As you can see it is a large limb.
Next we attached the cable around the other fork of the tree. Notched the trunk, made the main cut with the cable holding tension against the trunk, and pulled it over with the come-a-long. There was no way I was going to stand there and cut that tree off. Dead trees are unpredictable and no matter how large the notch or which way they are leaning they can fall in an unpredictable manner. The first tree was pretty much rotten. Once it was down we cut the second in the same manner but, it was solid in the center, leaning the wrong direction, and we had to pull it to the end of the come-a-long chain, hook up another cable type puller (cables make me nervous), and rehook the big come-a-long to the chain. The come-a-long chain is five feet long so we pulled the top of the second tree about ten feet before it fell.
As you can see this was a large tree. I am dumping the chunks about a quarter mile away in a gulley in a woods so we have been working two days cutting and hauling and are still not finished. My little Kioti has earned it's diesel. As you can see the logs are very large. The biggest one in the picture measured about 50" by 26". It was half rotted so not as heavy as it appears. The second tree's trunk is solid and much heavier. I've had to cut the log into smaller parts to be able to lift and carry it.
You can also see the forks I made for my bucket. They are bolt on bumper receivers mounted with two bolts each to the front lip of the bucket. Then quarter inch walled steel tubing mounted in them. Loosen eight bolts to remove them. Great for carrying brush and less than $100 invested. This might not work on a loader with a higher capacity but the little CK20 loader lifts about 1100 pounds and will not break them. I will fix a quarter inch backing plate for them when I get time.
Anyway, I just wanted to show the safer way to bring down a widow maker.
Oh yeah, after bringing down the limb and trees I got careless and nearly turned my tractor over dumping the large forked limb shown above. When I dumped it the stupid thing hit the ground with the lower limb and fell sideways against the left side of the bucket and brought the right back tire off the ground. I had to drop the bucket and the tractor hit the ground hard enough to jar me. All I had on the back was a subsoiler and had been too lazy to put the heavier tiller on for a counterbalance. That will never happen again.
RSKY
So I threw a rope over the limb and pulled a cable up and over it. The only part that scared me was getting on a ladder to loop the cable around itself so it would grip the limb. You can see the cable in the pictures. Then we strung out 150' of log chain and attached our heavy duty come-a-long to it and another tree. As you can see below this is a large tool that has chain instead of cable. Picture below.
Pulling on that come-a-long exhausted me. But it is a strong tool and one complete pull only moves the chain a quarter link.
Here is the limb on the ground.
As you can see it is a large limb.
Next we attached the cable around the other fork of the tree. Notched the trunk, made the main cut with the cable holding tension against the trunk, and pulled it over with the come-a-long. There was no way I was going to stand there and cut that tree off. Dead trees are unpredictable and no matter how large the notch or which way they are leaning they can fall in an unpredictable manner. The first tree was pretty much rotten. Once it was down we cut the second in the same manner but, it was solid in the center, leaning the wrong direction, and we had to pull it to the end of the come-a-long chain, hook up another cable type puller (cables make me nervous), and rehook the big come-a-long to the chain. The come-a-long chain is five feet long so we pulled the top of the second tree about ten feet before it fell.
As you can see this was a large tree. I am dumping the chunks about a quarter mile away in a gulley in a woods so we have been working two days cutting and hauling and are still not finished. My little Kioti has earned it's diesel. As you can see the logs are very large. The biggest one in the picture measured about 50" by 26". It was half rotted so not as heavy as it appears. The second tree's trunk is solid and much heavier. I've had to cut the log into smaller parts to be able to lift and carry it.
You can also see the forks I made for my bucket. They are bolt on bumper receivers mounted with two bolts each to the front lip of the bucket. Then quarter inch walled steel tubing mounted in them. Loosen eight bolts to remove them. Great for carrying brush and less than $100 invested. This might not work on a loader with a higher capacity but the little CK20 loader lifts about 1100 pounds and will not break them. I will fix a quarter inch backing plate for them when I get time.
Anyway, I just wanted to show the safer way to bring down a widow maker.
Oh yeah, after bringing down the limb and trees I got careless and nearly turned my tractor over dumping the large forked limb shown above. When I dumped it the stupid thing hit the ground with the lower limb and fell sideways against the left side of the bucket and brought the right back tire off the ground. I had to drop the bucket and the tractor hit the ground hard enough to jar me. All I had on the back was a subsoiler and had been too lazy to put the heavier tiller on for a counterbalance. That will never happen again.
RSKY
