Spring is cleanup time out in the country and often entails quite a bit of heavy work.
It was a harsh winter and the aspens in the hedge row are aging. We lost quite a few and had to clear them out.
At the beginning of the Spring Cleanup, I discovered that my chainsaw wouldn't start. I brought it in for service and now it runs like a charm.
The first thing that must be done is to get it started. The cold start can be a little tricky. You have to set the choke to full. A couple of pulls with that and then switch to half choke and it usually starts right up. Once it is warmed up, you can just turn it on and pull and it starts right up.
There are a lot of fallen trees, but there are also a fair number of standing dead trees. It is important to clean them out so they don't fall and take out healthy trees with them.
In order to control the direction of the fall, I choose where I cut carefully. First, I make a horizontal cut about halfway through.
Then I make an angle cut to take out a wedge of wood on the side to control the direction of the fall.
Finally, I make a shallow cut on the opposite side. This allows me to push the tree over in the direction I want it to fall.
Once the tree is down, I cut it up into manageable sections. I will lay it across another log to facilitate the cut. I do this for two reasons.
First, you don't want the chainsaw blade to spin in the dirt and rocks. This will dull the blade very fast.
Second, when the cut goes through you want the two halves to fall apart rather than pinching together which would trap and possibly damage the blade.
Once the logs are cut up into manageable pieces, we load them up on the back of the Gator to haul away.
This tree has been dead for a while. As you can see, the insides are hollow.
All images copyright © Thomas A. Diakun