27 April 2014

With apologies to The Mamas and the Pappas and Mel Brooks, all the trees are down and the skies are gray.  Snatch block?  I don’t need no stinkin’ snatch block.  Was another cold, wet, and nasty morning, so spent some quality time trying to ascertain how one crams a 10 lb sauna into an area that only appears to hold a 5 lb building.  Eventually figured it out, but the resulting site plan meant a large white oak that I wanted to keep had to join the “to be removed” list.  After lunch the wet went away, so tied the steel cable to the Kubota and, in turn, to all of the rest of the trees in the sauna building location, then pulled them down uphill, away from the wood walkway. No problemo!  Tallest tree missed the tractor (and me!) by at least 30 feet.  Only nerve-wracking part was climbing the extension ladder, leaning against a leaning tree, 25 feet in the air to attach the cable each time.  Was about to put the first fork-full of today’s logs on the firewood pile when I realized that action would completely block access to the Kubota’s backhoe attachment, removed before I started cutting trees so I could put on the 3-point hitch used to skid logs.  So had to take 45 minutes to remove the 3-point hitch, attach the backhoe to the tractor, move the backhoe to a new location, detach the backhoe, reattach the 3-point hitch… and call it quits for the day.