Hawthorn tree cutting this Spring

This Spring I spent a little time cutting the hawthorn trees in the SW corner of the south pasture.  I didn't spend near as much time as I did last year as I had other things to do.  

Before I got carried away cutting on the box elder trees by my house I spent an afternoon with the chainsaw cutting some hawthorn trees and also a downed tree trunk.  The tree had fallen years ago.  I left it be to dry out before cutting it for firewood.  The tree was getting to where I was concerned it would completely fall down. I didn't want it fall on any cattle who would rub against it.  One end of the tree was as high as me.  As you can see, turkeys and other birds liked to sit on the tree trunk.

It then took me two afternoons to stack the logs and also clean up the branches and debris.

After I finally finished cutting on the box elder trees I spent another afternoon cutting more hawthorn trees.  By this time the grass had started growing and was getting tall.  That made the cleanup of the cut branches harder.  Not that the large branch cleanup was harder, but the small branch and debris cleanup was harder as it was hard to find the small stuff in the tall grass and hard to rake it through the tall grass.  This time it took me three afternoons to cleanup stuff.

Last year the hawthorn thorns punctured my wheelbarrow tire. This year I used an old smaller wheelbarrow that has a solid tire, not an air filled tire.  This worked better.  No flats.  I won't go into detail about the thorns like last year, but, yes, they punctured my fingers, clothes and the bottom of my shoes.

It is nice to have a little less hawthorn trees.  Next Spring I will try to do the removal before the grass starts to grow.

A little after I started to chainsaw stuff.

After I cut and cleaned up stuff.

What remains of the tree trunk stump. 

Some hawthorn logs stacked between two remaining hawthorn trees.   The "white" trees behind are a different tree.  Not sure what kind of tree.  At least that tree doesn't have thorns.

This is the stack after my first cutting.  Don't know why but it often was partially knocked over.  Was it due to the crows taking a break from feasting on the dead cow nearby?  Now that the cow is mostly eaten, and the crows left, the stack of logs is completely staying stacked.