Tag Archives: cedar

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Trees and paper

I put out my recycling yesterday. All that paper that I fill paper bags with each month. Is paper disposable? It does come from trees.

Chainsaw and climbing gear. He doesn’t look like he’s that high up. But I am taking the picture from a rise, through a grove of smaller trees. Here is the tree that is coming down.

A storm had twisted the upper trunks until the lower trunk split vertically. Now it was dangerous and could fall on the house in another storm. And dangerous to take down because each of the four upper trunks had to be done separately.

One trunk left.

All down. The trunk is still alive and may live.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: disposable.

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Take down

This is a beautiful living cedar.

Unfortunately, the trunk, twenty feet high, had split in half in high winds. So now it was a very dangerous very tall living cedar that is going to come down and is right next to a house.

An expert was consulted. He said the tree could not be taken down intact. Each of the four tall trunks would have to come down individually. This is terribly dangerous, because felling trees is dangerous enough, but when you are up IN the tree, it is worse.

Gear for the take down.

There are four men and me. I am there with a camera. I do not help at all, I just try to stay well out of the way.

I am filming with a zoom lens from a nearby hill. They are trying to control the direction of the fall. Not on me or the house or any of them.
One down, three to go. When the top starts falling, it accelerates very quickly and crashes. He is trying to stay out of the way.
Going up to attach the cable high up to guide the fall direction.
Way up.
The falls take out smaller trees, but are controlled. It is raining.
Two trunks left.
Studying trunk three.
One left.
The last one is down. The trunk is still alive, with the split.
A closer view of the split trunk.

When the last trunk fell, it swung towards me and they shouted “Run!” It had slipped of the trunk and can’t be controlled as well even though there was a cable and a machine pulling in the desired direction. I ran and I am still here, thankfully.

Clean up on another day and the cedar goes to the sawmill.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: WAR. I wish we were all just working and there was no war.

No names or faces, because you know, those loggers are shy and wild, right?