I hope the melody of falling timber doesn’t resonate too well though, lest you may live well beyond the woods before too long.

-C

TREE KILLER! Yes, this was in jest.

Be careful using your new gas powered beaver. You may alrady know this but here is the proper way to cut down a tree.

1. Take a look at which way it leans naturally. If it is leaning towards something you don’t want it to hit, you need to do some additional work to at least get it to “swing” the way you want. Otherwise…

2. Don’t just cut straight through the tree. You need to undercut the trunk on the side you want the tree to fall (cut a wedge out of the trunk). This creates a weak spot that the tree will naturally fall towards when you cut through from the other side of the wedge. Be careful, if not done properly, the tree may twist and fall another direction – perhaps on you.

3. If the tree is leaning in a direction other than where you want it to fall, you will either have to cut it in small sections from the top (yes, you’ll have to climb the tree and tie yourself to it, obviously BELOW where you will be cutting), or if the lean is not too severe use wedges and rope to pull it more towards where you want it to fall.

4. Before you cut, examine the tree where you want to cut through. If it looks like the tree has grown around something that was attached to it, don’t cut there. Odds are it’s fence wire. I’ve seen that and I also once cut into a tree and hit a bullet someone had shot into decades earlier.

5. Most important – watch out for that saw kicking back on you. That happened to my grandfather once and he knicked his neck right below the ear. He missed the jugular, but almost became a Van Gough clone.

The previous paragraph is the most important as these saws have a tendency to kick.

Have fun. I’m sure there is plenty of dead wood to cut up if you wander around the property, so you can avoid being a tree killer.

I just recently started rereading my copy of the Mother Earth News Almanac, a small red paperback book that I picked up in the 1970’s. I could not help but think that many of its ideas might find life again in the “new” world into which we are heading.