Working with a chainsaw

Even though Winter is here - and getting stronger - I got out my chainsaw and cut up four downed trees in my pastures Friday and Saturday.  The other day I had finally finished splitting the logs I had stacked in the backyard and it was time to get more logs for next year.

The temperature was cold but I found wearing ear muffs was good for chainsaw noise reduction.  And the work kept me warm.  Come to think about it I sweat buckets when cutting in the summertime, so I guess cold is better.

I cut up the rest of one large tree and then three other medium sized trees.  The large tree was in the north pasture and one I had been slowly cutting up a number of years now.

Two medium trees were in the middle pasture and the other one in the south pasture.

Mainly I wanted to cut up two of the trees as they were laying on the ground.  The others were supported by their branches and in no danger of rotting.

One tree had fallen into another tree and I was concerned it would fall on cattle someday.  That turned out to be baseless as it was difficult to get the tree down.  The top branches intermingled with the live trees branches and it took a bit of cutting from the bottom to shorten the tree enough that I could then maneuver the trunk enough for the tree to fall out of the other tree.

I have fallen six trees left to cut up (one medium and five large trees), but as they all are supported by their branches and off the ground I can wait until next year. To use up the gas in the chainsaw I cut the smaller (top) parts of each of these trees to shorten their footprint length.

I stacked the logs in the pasture as I had a little daylight left.  I also was concerned the weather would really turn bad, and before Winter set in I wouldn't get the logs picked up and brought back to the backyard for splitting later.  I have enough logs already split to last me several winters so I can split these logs at my leisure.  And I am close to running out of room to store my split logs.

Here are photos of the north tree. The tree's diameter was so thick I had to cut from each side as my saw's 16 inch bar wouldn't go all the way through.  It's going to be some 'fun' splitting these logs.

The tree had blown over in a windstorm and this is the bottom of the stump.  I left it.   It was pain to cut and then I realized it made a decent place to sit.  And my north pasture hardly has any decent stumps for the cattle to scratch against.

The second photo was taken because I had taken photos of other piles of stacked logs.

Here is a photo of one of the south pasture's stacked log piles.  These logs are from the tops of trees I had cut.  The pile is a little bigger than it looks.

Here are the one of the log piles from the middle pasture.   The height is taller than me - over 6 ft.