Every morning I look at the dead branches on the cherry tree out back. I don’t know why cherry are like that but branches are always losing their leaves and the next thing you know the woodpeckers are working on it. Today I got our pole saw out and took care of it. Cleaned up a bunch of other small trees as well and then went for a big one.
I cut the wedge on the downhill side of the tree so the center of my wedge cut was pointed in the direction I wanted it to fall. And I looked up one last time before I made my cut from the other side. I saw Peggi motioning but I was wearing my Home Depot noise cancelling headphones and couldn’t make out what she was saying. The tree was only about eight inches in diameter, a maple with hardly any branches until the top, but it was probably sixty feet tall. If it went the wrong way it would hit the house.
This is where we turned to Jared, our next door neighbor. He advised us to throw a rope around the tree and take the other end of the rope down the hill where someone could stand behind a big oak pulling the tree toward them while I made the cut. Jared’s friend, John, volunteered for that. We dropped it just where we wanted it. I cut the tree into 16 inch logs and came up the hill just in time to hear Rick calling me for a game of horseshoes. I won the first and third game to take the match.
We planned to go down to the pool before bed for a midnight swim.
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