Feb. 5…We’re gone for two days and look what happens…Our 45 year old front yard tree decides to topple.
it yanked the post clean out of the ground.
Look at all those branches…I’m going to try out my new battery-powered pole saw.
I like this saw.
That little Greenworks 8 inch battery powered pole saw worked fast…It’s quiet with no mixed gas and no emissions.
While I was looking over all the wind damaged trees, a City of Bandon ‘bucket’ truck drove by, turned around, and stopped. “Looks like you could use some help.” Kevin took care of the leaning eucalyptus tree while Mark started cutting the big one.
Thank you Mark and Kevin and the City of Bandon utility crew.
That left the bare straight part and the stump. I figured we could wait for the weekend, but my wife let it be known that it had to be removed ASAP. “The fence is open and Bailey (our old and very deaf dog) could get hit by a car.”
A rented log splitter did most of the work with the two of us wrestling the sawn rounds onto the splitting plate.
I love it when the splitter pops the ’round’ all the way through, but it doesn’t happen often enough.
Load after load gets carried away with our DR Power Wagon. It will carry 800 pounds (362 kg) of anything, but it’s fossil fueled. We want to replace it with a battery-powered version. If anyone has a suggestion, please comment. Cool hat, Sue.
That stump was stubborn, but no match for the two of us, even though we’re in our 70’s.
Carmen is going to miss her climbing tree.
Sue shows off the latest in log splitting gear.
…and her mighty stacks of firewood.
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 
Wow, that’s a good sized tree, I hadn’t expected this after reading your mail. It should help keep you warm in the winter. A lot of work involved, I had to laugh when you said that it was a weekend job, until Sue gave you a good reason why it had to be done straight away 🙂 It sounds very familiar.
Yep…you know how that works, but you’re right, it’ll keep us warm next winter.
Something strange I noticed when I was sawing the wood, it smelled like honey…like the honey scent when you’re near a hive in late summer. The tree was a silver poplar. Bees are supposed to like poplar, but I never saw any bees on this one.
wow you made fast work of that large tree.
when I first saw the images I thought you might keep the larger pieces to carve?
I loved the way the cat was supervising her tree, now she has a big log pile to sharpen her claws on lol
It was a shame that tree had to go for firewood, but at least it’s not going to be wasted. I’m not much of a wood carver, so I didn’t even think about that, but I felt bad about the mighty tree toppling over.
Wow! You made short work of that impressive tree! That’s quite the pile of logs, too! Of course, kitty looks like an excellent supervisor.
That’s a very cool cart. Will be very interested to see if you find a version that’s not gas-powered.
We just pretended we were half our ages. It was fun work when we were in our 30’s. It’s still fun at this age but we don’t recover quite as quickly. As a matter of fact, we’re still wrapping our knees and wrists several days later.
I found a fantastic cart online. Battery-powered too. I noticed there wasn’t a price listed, so I emailed them. It’s about 5 times the price of this one…needless to say, I’m not getting it, but as lithium-ion battery prices come down, there is bound to be the perfect cart. At least I hope so.
I feel exhausted just looking at that log pile….
We are recovering…slowly. Quite honestly, we didn’t work 8 hours a day cleaning it up. We just sort of paced ourselves and felt relieved we didn’t do this type of work for a living.
Too bad you lost your tree. Looks like Carmen is really going to miss it! Looking at the bright side… you have lots of firewood!
Yes, lots of firewood, which is how we heat our house, using the wood cook stove. It’s wonderful…but hard to stay awake when relaxing by the fire in the evening, luxuriating in the cozy warmth.
Nice work. Is that the 40V or 80V version of the pole saw? We have been looking at such things but are reluctant to get anything with a chain. If only Milwaukee Electric would put their hackzall on a stick.
It’s the 40 vt version. I’ve got the 40 vt Greenworks cultivator too, so I can share the batteries.
Why would you not want the chain saw? They aren’t that hard to sharpen and they cut well. As a matter of fact, I cut into dirt several times while cutting the roots, so I sharpened often. You can’t do that with a blade saw…(at least I can’t)
I’m looking to upgrade my 20″ Echo chainsaw too. It’s a rip-snorting saw for sure, but…fossil-fueled. I’d keep it but use the battery ones more often.
They cut well but not for long. And the auto-oilers can be messy. And the tension adjustment can be finicky, And the chains are a little more intrinsically dangerous than blades. Enough unpleasant history with the noisy, smelly petrol brutes that we prefer not to deal with their more civilized electric relatives if there are alternatives.
The sharpening argument is a good one though. We are acquiring a small collection of dulled Lee Valley blades that we ought to see about resharpening.
That was some job! The stump extraction seems a speciality trick too. Amelia
Hello , I’ve been looking in from time to time . How did you actually get that tree stump out ? I have a tree stump that needs to come out..and now you have inspired me to try and tackle it ! 🙂 Daisy Debs 🙂
We were able to grab one of the roots. To get leverage we tied a rope as far out on the root as we could. With a come-along, (a hand winch) we pried the root upward to get at the roots underneath. One by one we were able to chop or saw it free. Then we let it down to get at the roots on the near side. Eventually we were able to cut enough roots to twist it and break the remaining roots.
Footnote: when the tree fell over, the roots were yanked out, so many were already loose. When the City guys started cutting the trunk, the root mess dropped back into the ground, but not all the way, exposing a few roots. That’s what we tied onto.
If you can dig around your trunk to expose the roots so you can cut them, that’s how you can dislodge it, preferably with a rope and some ‘pulling power.’
One further note, I saw something on Pinterest about drilling holes down into the stump and filling the holes with Epsom salts, presumably pouring water in the holes. I haven’t been successful with that method, but I didn’t pour water in either.
wow, wonderful infographic. what type of pole saw use?
The pole saw is a rip-snorting GreenWorks saw. I share the battery with a little GreenWorks cultivator and a GreenWorks String Trimmer.
I use an EGO Lawnmower that shares the battery with an EGO Chainsaw and the EGO Blower I just bought. It’s wonderful not having to use gasoline or inhale the pollution.