Im getting tired of tree's falling like cordwood around here

Well... no sooner then we recovered from the Blizzard, 6 more inches and 60 mph winds start making the pines around my house fold up like cheap suitcases and transformers are blowing like champagne corks in the distance
I'm running around collecting candles and batteries now praying our power holds up
My next house im chopping down anything thats not an Oak or Maple within eye shot of me... I dont see any Oaks dropping around here, its ALWAYS useless pine trees!!! why why why????

Those pine trees are good for pulp wood.

Too damn much wind resistance..........

I used to like hearing the wind blow through the pine directly outside our bedroom window. Weather forecasting without opening my eyes !!

Sandy took care of that tree. Luckily it fell away from the house when it went.



Rick

dcrane wrote: its ALWAYS useless pine trees!!! why why why????

I used to be able to take the butt end of an axe and break 4 or 5 inch round hemlock with one swipe. These were probably hung up for decades so they were super weatherd and dry. You can take a one inch pine stick and break it over you knee. Only thing you're going to break if you try that with oak is your knee.

Rick 386 wrote:Too damn much wind resistance..........

True in the winter but in the summer I see more pine too. I rarely see a hardwood snapped off like the pines and if it is it's usually from a split that was already compromised with rot. If anything it's the whole tree laying on the ground uprooted.

I have a bit of alder swampy area on both sides of my driveway and that wet area is almost always where I'll lose a tree in high winds. Especially if they come from a direction that the tree's are not used to being hit from. Also, if you lose one, it sometimes causes problems for others that used to get blocked a bit by the fallen soldier. I lost a big spruce and then two cedars right near it for that very reason. I'll mill em up this spring and turn them into something.

Just remember guys, them thar soft woods don't have half the root ball a good old hardwood does

My Brother had a tree business. In West Pittston they had a shade tree committee which you have to go too if you want to cut anything down on the tree lawn, the large trees there make up a very large part of the character of the town. I kind of like the idea but as with anything it's political and you have people on there making aesthetic decisions which isn't exactly ideal either. In any event after a big storm came through my Brother got job down the road to remove this massive maple that might of been three feet across that had fallen over onto a house. The lady from tree commission shows up and asks him how he's going to put it back. Even if that was a safe option you would of needed a D9....

Richard S. wrote:

dcrane wrote: its ALWAYS useless pine trees!!! why why why????

I used to be able to take the butt end of an axe and break 4 or 5 inch round hemlock with one swipe. These were probably hung up for decades so they were super weatherd and dry. You can take a one inch pine stick and break it over you knee. Only thing you're going to break if you try that with oak is your knee.

I would have thought because pines bent easier and such, that it would make them more resistant to snapping or falling over but that is defiantly NOT the case Half of these 2' diam. pines that were uprooted on my land are now being held up by Oaks.... now wth do a do I wish they just fell in peace all the way down (Im not a professional tree guy but rather a guy wearing a tie who bought a chain saw) Ihave no clue how to handle half these damb tree's now )

dcrane wrote:I would have thought because pines bent easier and such, that it would make them more resistant to snapping or falling over but that is defiantly NOT the case Half of these 2' diam. pines that were uprooted on my land are now being held up by Oaks.... now wth do a do I wish they just fell in peace all the way down (Im not a professional tree guy but rather a guy wearing a tie who bought a chain saw) Ihave no clue how to handle half these damb tree's now )

Pictures? My Brother had a tree business so I know a little about it. 2 inch tree already uprooted I'd just chain it up and rip it out of the ground with the truck. LOL

I'll give you the best advice you're going to get about that saw. Frequent light sharpenings are better than running it down. Keep it out of the dirt and mud and it will stay sharp for a long time. If it's new and/or you know the chain is as sharp as it's going to get note the size of the chips. That's the way they should always look, as the chain dulls the chips will get smaller.

I want you to look at a tooth on the chain. The tooth has flat part on the top that will be nearly parallel to the ground and then there is the cutting edge. As it dulls that cutting edge is going to round over. When you run a dull saw that rounding becomes exacerbated, to properly sharpen a chain that flat part on the top of the tooth has to be flat right up to the cutting edge. Running it dull is not only pointless but will also kill the life on the chain. As I said frequent light sharpening even if it's cutting well, give each tooth a light swipe with the file.

Yeah, running it dull makes lots of heat and smoke, but not many woodchips. That gets real aggravating to someone like me who's in a perpetual hurry. Makes cutting PAINFULLY sloooooow .....


Guess you guys haven't got hit as hard by all the storms we've had over here the past 4 years. There isn't a single weak tree left! A massive ice storm, 2 hurricanes, a couple floods, a freak October snowstorm, a huge blizzard, and hundreds of windy days took them all down. We didn't even lose power during the last big snowstorm a little over a week ago - now that's saying something right there! We used to lose power whenever it rained!!

Pines are weak - it's their nature. If a tree is gonna bust, it'll be a pine before any other. I like them - as long as they're FAR away from anything important. They drop needles everywhere that are a bitch to clean up, they drop branches through your roof every storm, and drop sap onto the cars you care about .... and campers and boats, if your lucky enough to afford those things in this state. Which reminds me. I;ve got a few around the property that are growing a little too close to things. I'll nip those in the bud this spring.

Ill take some pictures when the sun comes up tomorrow of my problem tree's (your gonna shyt when you see how these things fell), i dont mind the ones on the ground so much (i can deal with them without risking my life)... its these monsters that are half leaned over onto other tree's and still others that seemed to have inverted themselves into Y's of other tree's (so the trunk/root is up 100 feet in the air and the top is on the ground .... like how does that even happen

dcrane wrote: (i can deal with them without risking my life)...

That's not necessarily the case especially if you're dealing with larger trees. Some of them limbs can be under extreme pressure and if you cut in the wrong order you're going to get to get crushed. Let me give you simple example a rookie might make, let's say you had tree that fell over completely and uprooted the stump. You get down to the last part near the stump and cut that last piece off. Only trouble is your buddy is standing in the hole the stump left and and now he's flat as pancake because the stump flipped back into the hole when there was no more weight on in keeping it upright.

I think soil type also plays a role. e.g. Hard clay vs sandy soil. The three spruce trees around my house were planted in 1938 and have seen EXTREME wind...they are rooted in clay and don't flinch.

Aside from all the didactic crap--dc--their called widow makers for a reason--get somebody that knows what the hell their doing to advise/ do this job--you'll never catch up, all broke up