When today’s fire pit fire was almost burned down, I just couldn’t help myself.  My tools were still out, and there was this big dead branch that I really wanted to take down.

I had started to cut through it with the extended pruning saw, a while ago, so I just had to continue.

Towards the end of it, the pressure from the branch got my pruning saw stuck, so I had to take it out, then finish the last fraction of an inch with the hand saw.

This is the branch, completely cut through.

It wasn’t moving.  At all.

This is why.

The branch had long been rubbing on a branch in the tree next to it.  Now that it was cut, it was just leaning and being held up by this other branch.

We use a steel pole we found somewhere in the yard to move the wood around in the fire, so I used that to push the branch off the trunk.

Alrighty, then.  I’ve got the base down, but it’s still hung up on the other tree.

After moving the barrel, I pulled the base of the branch out until it fell into the V of the other tree.  I then swung it around to the right until I broke a branch that you can see higher up, which freed the main branch up and I could finally pull it away until the old, rotting wood at the top broke under its own weight, and it came down.

Then I had to go back and pull down the broken pieces that were still stuck in the other tree.

You can see the wound in the branch or the other tree, where it was being rubbed for so many years.

This is probably the last of the big dead branches to come down in this area.  There are others, but they are too high to cut, even with the extended pruning saw.  I can add another extension and might even be able to reach them, but reaching them and cutting them is something else entirely.  There are also others that are partly dead, that I have to decide on cutting down entirely, or leaving for now.

It felt good to finally get this big one down.

All this clean up, however, is making it very difficult for us to use up the pile of dead wood for the fire pit!  We keep adding more than we are burning.

We’re just going to keep having lots of cook outs. :-D

The Re-Farmer