Category: Trees

After cutting down the last of the oak triplet in the back yard I had to do some cleaning as there was lots of uncut wood on the ground. It took a while to cut it to pieces and carry it to its final storage location. This gave me some time to gather my senses and my courage and start seriously thinking about the big tree cutting job of this summer: the big heavy and long branch right over our roof.
I did not measure the length of the branch but I estimate it to be well over 10 m if not 15 m long. Since we bought the house it had attracted my attention as it really extended right over our roof not very high above it. It was in my opinion the reason why the roof on that part of the house was collecting lots of moss and the roof was decaying quicker than the rest. The branch has two effects: it would drop dirt on the roof and prevent the sun from shining on the roof. Both effects obviously promote moss growth. This branch has therefore been on my list of things to fix as soon as we would get our new roof. On the other hand we had investigated with arborists how much the removal of this branch would be and together with the triplet it came out to be not under $3500. Of course this was a large sum and we did not hire professionals.
Finally now it was the time to get started and I figured getting up on the branch was not going to be difficult but walking out on the limb to be able to cut down one small piece at a time would require some skill I was not sure I had. I would have to walk along the limb pretty much all the way where the piece to cut would be small enough so it would not hit our roof when cutting it off. I figured pieces of about 2 m would be the maximal length. I had the rigging technique down but checked out my book for how to walk the limb. It all looked very straight forward in the book but from below in reality it looked very daring. Finally I took my throwing kit and started tom install the rope in the best position I could find. It took me the better part of an hour to even have the rope in place. By far the most complex rope installation I had done so far, but finally the rope was in place and I was ready to start. I had come home early from work to get the project going but when I finally was up in the tee sitting on the big branch I was wondering how far I would get before the sun would have disappeared. Walking the limb turned out to be easier than it looked from below but difficult enough to dispense the proper amount of adrenaline in my body. I was able to position myself reasonably quickly and rigged the end of the branch I had figured to be the simplest to cut. I triple checked the rigging and estimated the length and figured it should work, but of course was not 100% sure. In my mind I saw the branch hitting the roof and leaving a hole …. but I finally started the sawing. The branch came down pretty quickly and it went perfectly as planned. Only the very last soft tips of the branch touched the roof and I carefully lowered the branch were Ana passed it my the roof and dropped it to the floor. It was starting to get dark at this point, but I quickly took care of 3 more pieces which all went very well. Finally when the furthest 23 had been cut down I came down. Meanwhile it was pretty dark and i was glad to finish to leave the rest for the next day or the weekend.

…. to be continued