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A neighbor of my parents had three trees that were dying and he asked if I would cut them down for him...I could keep the wood. On the face of it, this appears to be a good deal but if you have cut down trees before you quickly realize that cleaning up all the limbs is a HUGE amount of work...and if your time is valuable...the wood you gain is not enough to off-set your labor. But, in this case, the old neighbor is a friend and I was happy to help. This gave me a chance to run my new Dolmar 7900 and use my Fiskars Super Splitter on the large rounds I cut. The trees were a big black cherry and two ash. Both of which make excellent firewood. I love both cherry and ash, they are a joy to split and I love the smell that cherry gives off when its cut and split. My buddy next door offered to bring his backhoe over to help me fell the trees. I would cut and he would push with his machine. They were too close to the power lines for my skill level as a tree feller so I was grateful for his help. Here he is with his machine waiting for me to put down my camera and fire up my saw.
We got all three trees safely, and quickly to the ground and from there I fired up my Husqvarna 346XP and started limbing.
The ash tree is closest to me...the cherry is in the background. Please note my personal protection equipment (PPE). My helmet with face screen, safety glasses, chainsaw gloves, chaps and steel toe boots. Please do not run a saw without your PPE.
I was able to haul away three truck loads of firewood from this job. Again, the branches were a pain. I had to pull them to the middle of his yard and make a large pile to burn at a later date. I did get a lot of wood. I noticed many of the other neighbors came out to watch. I'm sure they were checking out my saws and thinking just how cool I must be!
Below is a picture of the wood once I got it home to my house. I pile my wood next to my Hardy H2 outdoor wood boiler (OWB). One of the benefits of an OWB is you can dump your wood next to the furnace avoiding the need to lug it into the basement. This saves a lot of back breaking work. Not to mention you keep all the bugs, dirt, and ash out of your house. The cherry is the darker wood on the right. The ash is to the left. It is much lighter, almost white when split.
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I hope you have been doing well and have been getting in your wood. I have a feeling the cold weather is just around the corner.
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OWB
