When clearing select trees on the property I noticed that I had a tree that was a little too close to the power line. It wasn’t in the power line but it had limbs growing close to it. I’d rather cut a tree then be responsible for a future power outage, so I got out the chainsaw and assessed the tree to be sure it would fall away from the power line. Most ponderosa pines grow straight up, but this pine was leaning towards the power line.
I’m no lumberjack, but I’ve had a chainsaw in my hand ever since I was 12 years old. I wasn’t sure if I could notch the tree enough to compensate for the lean, so I got out two logging chains and tied the chain to a nearby pine that you see in the photo. Sure enough, as soon as I cut the notch, the tree started leaning more towards the powerline until the chain went tight. At this point I knew that I was potentially screwed if I didn’t do something pretty quick. Keep in mind, my wife is standing there giving me the evil eye.
I knew the logging chains could hold the weight, and I was fairly confident that my rigging job would hold together; although, I always plan for the worse case scenario. Anyway, I immediately thought about the winch. I got the Jeep and drove where I thought I’d be free from the tree fall. I had a tree saver strap in my off-road gear bag. I placed the strap as high on the tree as possible, spooled out the line, and latched the hook. We put the Jeep in neutral, applied the brakes, and let the Warn M8000 do the work. The M8000 spools fairly quick for this application, so I tapped the button on the remote and slowly leaned the tree back the other way until it gracefully came tumbling down. I looked up to make sure the wife was smiling, then I knew I was in the good.
