Some trimming on the box elder patio trees

I haven't hauled off the tree trimming branches I did a few days ago.  First I drove my tractor to the John Deere dealership south of town so they can work on and fix my tractor.  It will take a while.  I bungee corded my bicycle to the tractor's load arms so I could ride home afterwards.

Before hauling the branches I decided to trim a few branches off the box elder trees over my patio.  That way I can make a one trip to haul off the branches.

That wasn't my initial plan, but the end of one branch had died and I thought I would cut it off.  Initially I had the ladder on the ground.  Fully extended it just reached the branch.  I slowly climbed up to cut with my handsaw.  It was iffy.  At the top I had to hold on to parts of the branch with one hand and could only use one hand to cut on the branch.  It was going very slow.    The cattle in the north pasture must have seen me as they came to the corral gate and started mooing.   They wanted apples.  And they have eaten the north pasture grass down and wanted to go to the middle pasture. 

The ladder was almost straight up and down and had little lean to it.  I didn't want to go up and down the ladder, but between the cattle mooing and the slow cutting I gave up and headed down.  Going down was harder than going up.   I had a fear of the ladder falling backwards.  I made it safely.

After feeding two pails of apples to the cattle and then letting them into the middle pasture and then carrying their salt block to a feeder in the pasture, it was back to cutting that branch.  I decided to put the ladder in the pickup bed.  That way I can get more lean on the ladder and still reach the branch.   I bungie corded the ladder to the pickup bed so the ladder wouldn't slip when I was on the ladder.  The ladder was still steep, though the first photo doesn't capture the steepness or height.

I tried using the handsaw but it was still slow.  I was leery about using a chainsaw to cut the branch as I still held onto the branch with one arm.  But I tried the chainsaw.  It worked better than I expected and I was able to safely and quickly cut the branch.

These are big and tall trees.  You can see how some of the upper branches are dying.  I can't get that high though I'd like to trim those trees from the top.

The branch I chain sawed.

There are a few more branches to trim on those trees.  I'll see tomorrow how high and how many branches I can trim.