Finally!

With last night’s storm, I was happy to see the tree my brother cut down that got hung up on other trees had fallen closer to the ground. It’s not going to drop any further, though. It’s now hung up between the trunks of a group of trees. We can, at least, reach most of it better, though, so we’ll be able to work on it eventually.

With today’s slightly cooler weather and a nice, clear day, I started working on getting those dead spruce trees my brother cut down for me, out of the bushes.

I took photos and will eventually put it all together in a video but, for now, this is what I managed to get done today.

Gosh. That doesn’t look like much, now that it’s done! 😄 It did, however, take a LOT of prep work before these logs could finally be dragged over.

The two trees that were on the ground were almost completely hidden by underbrush. I used the weed trimmer to clear a path to them first, then did a bit around the trees themselves. There were too many hidden branches, though, so I had to shift gears.

The top of the first tree extended a lot more than I thought it did. I used the little mini-chainsaw pruner to clear the branches, then remove the most crooked section of the top, before working my way down the trunk. I had the wagon nearby to put the branches in, and made a few trips to the branch pile near the fire pit, cleaning up as I went along.

Once I got it clear enough, I was able to pull the entire trunk out from under the stuck tree, then continue removing a few more branch stubs. Next, I measured 18 feet from the thick end of the trunk, and used the electric chain saw to cut it. I used a rope to drag the top part through the trees and into the garden, which was harder than it should have been. I neglected to roll it over and check it, first. There turned out to be a stub of a broken branch at the end, acting like an anchor!

Needless to say, I made sure to check the 18′ piece before I dragged that away, too!

The top of the tree is around 16-17′ long. Too short and thin to make the long walls of the beds, but it will do nicely, cut into 4′ lengths, to create the end walls.

The other tree that was flat on the ground was looking very crooked – spruces tend to be like that at their tops – and I thought it was shorter than the first one. As I cleared more dead branches and tried pulling it out from under the stuck tree trunk, I realized it was a lot longer, and thicker! In fact, when I finished clearing the branches and measured out 18′ from the end, I was still at the far side of the stuck tree! It was simply too big to pull out first, like I could with the first tree.

The top was moved first. I hadn’t bothered to measure it, since I figured it would be too short, but when I dragged it between the posts that are 18′ apart, it almost reached, end to end! The thinner top, though is still pretty crooked, so it will likely not be used as a side wall.

Then it was time to drag out the rest of it. I rolled it around to cut away any branch stubs that might cause problems, but the trunk was quite a bit larger and heavier, and getting caught on things. While I was working, I was constantly finding very old and rotting branches and pieces of tree trunks hidden in the undergrowth, that have clearly been there for many years. They made for a rough surface to drag on. I ended up tying a plastic bag around the end of the trunk, to reduce friction. It helped a lot but, by then, I was getting pretty hot and tired, so I got a daughter to pause making supper to come help me drag it out.

While working on this tree trunk, I found the fourth tree my brother had cut down. It is another big one, and he felled it in the opposite direction. It’s almost completely hidden, not just by undergrown, but other trees, and I’m honestly not sure how I’m going to get at it.

As for the tree that’s stuck, that one is even bigger. This is one that’s going to have the thickest 10′ cut off and taken to where we plan to build the shelter for the outdoor kitchen we plan to build. These trunks are far too thick to use for raised beds, as they would take up a lot of growing space. Rather than cut them in half or something, we will instead use them as vertical supports for the shelter.

But I was not about to work on either of those logs, today.

I started to put things away, but I really wasn’t happy with having done only two trees. Especially when there were other thinner dead trees, right there.

Yup. I ended up cutting down another tree.

Gosh, that thing felt so light, after fighting with the big one! Even though I used a hinge cut, it still fell off to one side and got a bit hung up on other trees. It was easy to get loose. I just put the rope around the trunk near the stump and pulled it until it fell the rest of the way. It also fell across the stuck tree, which made it much easier to work around.

Then it was just a matter of clearing a few branches – there weren’t very many at the bottom half – measuring out and cutting 18′ and dragging it out.

The top of the tree is resting on top of undergrowth, and I left it there for now. I am not sure how much of it will be useable. It won’t be useable for the walls on the raised bed, but it might be useful in other ways.

I’m still going to have to cut down one more smaller tree for this bed. There’s one that looks like it’s similar in girth as the log with the plastic bag on the end. I’m planning to make these beds 2 logs high, but I want the bottom logs to be the bigger, thicker ones.

This time I have the draw knife, so I want to de-bark the logs and cut away any remaining branch nubs, lumps and bumps. I didn’t do that for the high raised bed, and I can see that it would be much better to do it than not.

I want to get at least one bed built, with the vertical trellis supports in place, before cutting down more trees for the second one. Ideally, I’d put in the vertical supports for both beds, along with the horizontal supports to make a trellis tunnel, right from the start, but we’re going to have to work on things piecemeal for now. Plus, we will be building at least one, probably two, more of these, so this one is the learning experience!

I’m happy with the progress, and I’m paying for it now, but I’m actually not having as much trouble as I’ve had in the past. Of course, tomorrow might prove me wrong, but it seems my body is finally starting to handle things better. Yes, I’m stiff, my left knee tried to make an escape, and a thigh tried to go into a conniption fit, but I’ve certainly had far worse pain, stiffness and joint instability after far less work.

It just feels so good to finally be able to work on this!

The Re-Farmer