Chainsaw Repair

This thing is the largest shag bark hickory I've ever seen in my life .It was over 100 and  three feet at the cut .

Tom for some reason wanted to put a rope in it and cut some out of the top .He did a pretty good job shooting it through a  6 foot hole .Differences in the way things are done between a ground  feller like me and a tree trimmer .The end results are all that matter though not the methods .

I bucked it and cleaned up the mess in my neighbors yard which took me the best part of a day .Geeze there's enough hickory in those 16 foot logs to make hammer handles for half the state of Ohio .

The stump over the rootspread was five and a half feet and I counted 270 growth rings .Have no idea what killed it nor many hickorys over the last several years ,just died on the vine

That oak stump I'm standing on in the avatar  was probabley at least 12 inchs in diameter during the revolutionary war .It exceeded  the big hickory by about 20-30 years judging by the ring count . The average life of a northern red oak exceeds 300 .Some rare ones maybe 400 .Not too many of those eastern giants left standing though .

This was one of my screw ups .Damned cotton wood was right over this guys barn with a lean .I knew I could turn the lay at least 90 on the fall and tried for about 110 degrees .

Trying to hit a 20 foot hole which I almost did until I cut the wrong  side of the tapered back cut and put a top limb into a big hickory and there it hung .Had to fence post that SOB until it was about straight and snatch it with a skidloader .Didn't take much except I should have hit it the first shot had I payed attention .Chit happens .

I see I'm not the only one that has been kept busy with Ash trees the last several years. Dang EAB
Here is a video of my 5200 Poulan, proof I do use them. LOL  And a couple pics from another Ash I took down & bucked up with the 245A. And one I used the 4200 on. Wern't monsters by any means, all 3 were 25" .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADMdSPK7_VM&feature=player_detailpage

It's decent firewood .Not as good as oak but still good .It makes wonderfull lumber also if you' re into wood working .If you get creative with stain it's hard to tell from oak especially if quarter  sawn .

Now I'm trying to save the best logs for saw logs because this is it for ash in probabley the forseeable future .Once it's gone it's gone .

I figure we've got 5-7 years at best to get the dead ones while they are still fit for lumber .That 24 incher is a perfect sized saw log .