I've been working on the willow tree on the garage. First problem: cutting the tree down without causing more damage to the garage. I stacked the wooden pallets under the tree trunk before cutting the tree from the top.
What held the tree trunk up after I started cutting? The short boards I leaned against the trunk as an after thought - not the pallets.
I first trimmed the branches from the tree trunk. Then I broke off the smallest part of the branches with the leaves and fed them to the cattle who loved eating them. The rest - five buckets worth - I placed in buckets with water. Some branches will grow roots and I will place them in the ground to start new trees.
Then Wednesday evening I fired up the chainsaw. Standing on the garage roof I cut the trunk into smaller pieces and then rolled the cut pieces off the roof. I squatted and balanced on the very edge of the roof to cut the last piece touching the roof. For the last piece, before I took this photo, I did stand on the ladder. It was almost dark when I finished to what is seen here.
What was tricky is that much of the tree trunk was wider than my 16 inch chainsaw blade and I had to cut from two sides.
Rain was in the forecast for Friday afternoon so Thursday I worked on fixing the holes in the roof. The smaller hole was one broken board and I replaced it with part of a board I had removed from my well's pump house when I replaced that roof with a plywood sheet earlier this Summer.
The second hole was larger and also had the problem that the tree also broke one roof stud. The boards held the stud from falling down. The nails were almost out of the stud after the impact. I am amazed my entire roof did not collapse from the falling tree's impact.
How to fix the stud 10 and 1/2 feet above the ground?
While it looks like the cross stud underneath is underneath the broken stud, it is not. I jacked the stud back up straight using a long board placed on the ground and placed next to the cross stud. It took two attempts as the first attempt failed. When the broken stud was almost in place the jack and board above it popped out of place. Standing on a wobbly step ladder I was able to catch the failing jack and not fall myself.
The second attempt worked. I nailed two boards from the broken stud over to the cross stud. Then it started to rain. After the rain it got dark. I plan to nail another two by four along the broken stud, but first...
My chainsaw's chain was dull. I planned on buying a new chain as I thought the chain's life was over as the chain had been sharpened a lot over the years. I was mistaken as I mixed up my previous chainsaw's chain with the current one. Wyatt had helped me look at several used tractors on Thursday and afterwards he looked at my chain. There was lots of life left on the chain. He showed me how to sharpen the chain.
With a sharper chain on Saturday I cut the rest of the tree up. By the time I was done cutting, the chain needs sharpening again. I went through almost a gallon of gas cutting the tree.
Each piece is very heavy. At one point I had a single wooden pallet on the ground to protect the concrete outside the small door. One falling cut piece smashed the pallet.
I left the very bottom of the trunk in one piece as it was too massive to cut. I'll dry it and use it in a future tree trunk bonfire.
This piece makes me think it could be shaped into a chair. Probably won't happen.
I had to be careful to cut around the large amount of cement I had placed in the rotting part of the tree trunk back in July 2011.
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