At our mountain house, there was no convenient place to turn around in our driveway and visitors had to back uphill to the top of the driveway before they could turn around. Also, it has been awkward with my trailer to turn it around and get it to a parking place out of the way.
So, we decided to cut the three trees shown in the foreground in this picture. We hired a Service to cut the trees and grind the stumps. Once the trees were laying in the driveway, I cut them into firewood lengths, split the wood, and stacked it between nearby trees. My neighbor helped by cutting up one of the trees for me.
I like watching other people work. This man used the tree/pole climber spikes and ropes to position himself up in the trees and cut them off making sure they fell away from the house.
At first, I wondered why they didn’t use a truck with a bucket to get into position and make the cuts instead of using spikes. Then I figured out: In the mountains it would be difficult to find a level place or even room to use a bucket truck. I keep learning the subtle differences between doing things in the flatlands of Eastern NC and doing them in the mountains.
My neighbor also helped me watch the stump grinder at work.
Finally, after about two and a half days of work, I like the looks of all that firewood cut, split, and stacked. I have other dry wood to burn this winter, so this will be used next year or possibly later this winter. It will dry pretty fast in these stacks. Green wood does burn, but it doesn’t burn as well as when it is dry.
This wood split easily. One hard swing of the splitting axe uses less energy and works much better than several less agressive swings. It also helps when you need a second or third swing of the axe to be able to hit the wood again in the same place you hit it the first time. I got some better at this by the time I was finishing up.
Another thing of interest was finding a nest of carpenter ants in the center of the tree trunk just above ground level.
