Tree trimming in the pasture

I had finished harrowing my pastures back in April.  Over the years I found many lower tree branches can be a pain when harrowing, as I try to get close to the tree, branches will rub against the vehicle.  Back when I used my pickup to pull the harrow sections I trimmed tree branches above the pickup height.  When I started using my previous tractor I had to trim the branches higher.   Even then I still had a few branches rub against the tractor's cab.  Especially when some trees where close together and I didn't have as much room to maneuver around them.  My new tractor the cab has side mirrors.  Now I really notice when the branches rub against the tractor as the branches will fold the mirrors in against the tractor cab.  Time to do more tree branch trimming.

I thought it would take me less than a week to do the trimming and cleaning.  But after two months of trimming I am still not done.   I found more lower branches than I remembered.  I found more trees to trim than I expected.  For these extra trees I have room to maneuver around but I still don't get close to the tree trunk and I the end up spending some time raking the manure away from the tree.  Since I am trimming tree branches let me make it easier.  I found some dead branches in trees I was trimming.  Okay, let me cut them off and clean up the tree.   And I found a number trees who had branches growing down then out.  I am trying to cut branches to be above 10 feet up.  These trees with branches growing down meant I was 15 to 20 feet up to cut the branch from the trunk.  I have a pole saw with height, but the higher the cut the longer the pole saw, and this means the cutting is slower. 

Add in that the pole saw sections have pins to hold the section connections in place.  With all my cutting some of the pins slipped out.  I ended up replacing some of the pins with screws.  

Over time some screws tried to unscrew.  For these sections I then replaced the screws with small bolts.

Fortunately I had two blades for the pole saw as one blade broke.

I have a few youngish trees growing really close to one another.  Or tree trunks that split.  For trees really close to one another it would be good to remove one of the trees.  But as the branches usually are not all around each tree, I trim part of the tree I plan to eventually remove.  That gives time for the other tree to grow more branches to round out and get more balance.  In the past when I quickly removed one of the trees, in the next year or two a strong wind sometimes would blow over the unbalanced tree.

Close trees I trimmed this year.

Before and after.

Another view of the tree after the cut.

What I trimmed from the tree is the previous photos.  It was high up there and slow cutting.  Took me a few days.  I ended up making the cut in two locations as the saw blade started to get stuck in the first cut.

More close trees.  This time I trimmed branches from one tree instead of the tree height.  Another year I will trim the height from one tree as I was tired of doing so this year after the previous cut took so long.

From the five tall trees in the previous photo these are the branches what I ended up cutting off. 

This tree trimming was slower and harder than I thought it would be.  I found I could only spend four hours or less each day to trim branches.  Spending all that time looking up while using my arms and shoulder to cut branches meant the back of my neck would get sore.  I had to take breaks.  I then found that after between three and four hours of work I would start to get dizzy from spending all that time looking up.  I had to take longer breaks.  Then after a bit quit for the day.

I still am not done trimming tree branches.  I got the north pasture trees trimmed.  In the middle pasture I have about 14 trees left to check for trimming.  I may not get all, or many, of the south pasture trees trimmed his year.   I had to take a break from tree trimming as I have to do the first hay cut of the year.  Once the hay cut was done time to irrigate.   Before I started the irrigation I wanted clean up the cut branches.  I had so many branches I wanted to use my pickup.  Once irrigation started driving out to the pasture would be limited due to the pipes on the ground.

Of the cut branches a number were thick enough they would be good for firewood.  I then spent time trimming the smaller side branches of the cut branches.  In the end I ended up with four large pickup loads of branches to later cut up for firewood.  I ended up with nine large pickup loads of useless branches.  Those I dumped in low areas of the pastures that I don't harrow.

Two of the four pickup loads of branches for firewood.

The firewood branch pile in the yard.

This is the firewood branch pile I put in the northeast pasture.  That is because the pile in the yard was getting large.

Moving irrigation pipes is taking up a lot of my time these days.  Not sure when I will get back to trimming tree branches in the pastures, or when I will chainsaw these branch piles into shorter pieces for my firewood stove.