tree

Friday Firesmith – the raccoon apocalypse tree

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When a raccoon hid in the hollow of a tree in 2016, Marco and Greyson, my sister’s dogs, lost their damn minds. Having a great deal of Black Lab in them, they were hunting dogs and as such, wanted to hunt the raccoon. The raccoon was not amusedand not coming out to play. I dragged the dogs away and the raccoon slipped out and was gone.

The Cousins dogs were returned to my sister back in 2019. The rain came in 2023 and flooded the back of the property.That tree sat in water for nearly two years and finally died.

Yesterday, the 27th of May, I finally took the tree down with a chainsaw, and as always, using a chainsaw can be an adventure.

Dead and hollow, like my dreams of finding romance at my age, the tree offered me an opportunity to watch the trunk splinter and crack, possibly falling apart, and maybe even falling in a direction I could not predict. Videos of this sort of thing are terrifying for those of us who use chainsaws.

I cut the notch and was happy. The notch did not get into the hollow yet looked deep enough to guide the fall in the right direction. As I began the main cut into the truck, opposite the notch, the cutting was easy, too easy, as the hollow offered no resistance. I stopped and drove in two wedges, to keep the tree from settling back on the saw, and to ease it in the direction I wanted it to fall. I cut a few inches more and the wedges began to vibrate. This meant they were loose and the tree was leaning in the right direction. I started cutting again and as soon as the wedges fell out, away I went, saw in hand. The tree began a perfect fall.

And perfect was this all. Then the falling tree caught on the limbs of another tree that had died. For a brief moment in time I looked on and thought to myself, yeah, it can just stay there. I aimed for the woods, the woods I hit, and… then the tree branches holding the felled tree all started snapping. The fell tree began falling again, but the branches that held it up also changed its momentum. The tree kicked back, about ten feet, and had I been standing where I had been cutting this would be a much more interesting story, or last week really would have been the last week. Back ten feet, over three, and it almost got my metal wagon.

When you cut a tree, and it starts falling, you better be moving. Move as far away as you think you should and add ten feet.

Imagine the butt end of that tree hitting you.

Take Care,

Mike

Friday Firesmith – Fire!

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I always wondered why that Live Oak tree was still standing. The lean was pronounced, to say the least. But it stood for over two hundred years, and twenty since I’ve been here. Eleven inches of water in six hours brought the water level up higher than anyone had ever seen or imagined. I went out in my wading boots and could hear the Oak’s roots groaning and popping. By the time I got back inside and got the cell phone the tree fell with a splash.

That was 12 April 2023.

A likely young man who had no small amount of skill with a chainsaw helped me get the branches off the tree, we waded in waist deep water to get a lot of it into the woods, and at the end of two weeks, we had all but the main trunk hauled away.

The water level receded enough for me to burn the top branches, some of them thicker than my waist. Then the rain came back and forced me away.

A week or so ago I started burning again and this time the weather held and I’m making good progress. But a Live Oak that has been dead for two years is still not giving up the ghost that easily. Live Oak is a dense wood, and I started a fire on a Monday, and it burned until Saturday, in some form or another. I’m averaging about a foot off the tip of the tree per burn.

It takes a lot of fuel to do this, and I’m not willing to use gasoline or anything like that. I also don’t want a giant fire that can be seen from the space station. I have time. There’s no reason to make a mistake with this fire.

As odd as it may sound, the fire can still escape. Yes, it’s a foot away from a pond formed by the flooding. Yes, I have three outdoor faucets within range, and yes, keeping the fire burning hot enough for the Live Oak wood to burn has been an issue. But fire is a willful and hungry demon who calls no man her friend. I will neither turn my back on her nor will I allow weariness to pull me into some sense of security when the fire burns bright and hot.

I sit now, and wait until the wood dries from yesterday’s rain, and the mud isn’t as slick. I’m getting down to the trunk of the tree, thick and heavy. I’m thinking about drilling large holes in the trunk, some down and some sideways, and see what this brings when the fire digs deep. This is a time for experimentation as well as heat, as all things should be.

Take Care,

Mike