Jan's tree

One of Jan's aspen trees died this Summer.  Today I finally found time to cut it down for her.

And it was a job to cut this tree down! The tree was near power lines and tall enough that some branches could reach the lines if the tree fell that way.  I was not 100% positive I could cut the tree to fall away from the lines.  So I climbed up an extension ladder and carefully cut off branches before cutting near the top of the tree to lower its height below the power line height.

When I cut the tree trunk I was able to push it to fall away from the lines.

Even though the tree has been dead all Summer it wasn't dry.  And the wood was dense.  That made for hard and slow cutting.  I had sharpened the chainsaw chain prior to cutting the tree and had to sharpen the chain again after cutting the tree.  I cut the tree trunk into smaller logs and those logs were heavy.

It doesn't look like it would take that long, but I spent four hours cutting down and then up the tree.  A cold front came during this time.  The wind really blew, the sky got cloudy, and the temperature got colder.

I had three tanks of gas left, and after cleaning up Jan's tree, I cut some of my fallen trees in the pasture.  I have lots more fallen trees left to cut up!