The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall

This was my first take down of a Giant Sequoia. There is a reason they are not call Petite Sequoia. The Giant Sequoia grow at astonishing rates to incredible sizes. For these reasons, they are not well suited for urban environments. These trees were planted only eight feet from the house, and about four feet from each other.

With this job necessity drove innovation, and I used a zip line to send all the large branches directly into my trailer. It was an intense couple of days but the trees are down safely.



I know I post a lot about felling big trees, but I do so much more than that. I do a lot of pruning of large trees, small trees, fruit trees, and shrubs. These big trees really leave an impression on me and on the ground when they fall. That is why I like to post about the big trees.

Logger For a Day

I had the opportunity to fell five large Douglas Firs yesterday. They ranged in size from about 120ft to 150ft tall. We had to fell them all due west because of power lines to the south. I used my trusty Big Shot to set ropes in the trees. Then we applied a 3to1 pully system and pulled them down one by one. All the trees came down perfectly without any problems, except for the poison oak on my arms. Here is video of three of the biggest one coming down.

Enjoy.

Trees at wrong Angles

Most trees you see are perpendicular to the ground. In the past couple of weeks I have encountered two trees that I would say were at the 'wrong angle.' Sometimes trees grow at odd angles due to competition for light with other trees. Sometimes they just fall over. Either way it looks very unnatural to see a tree not doing what trees should be doing.

The first tree was an Oregon Ash that fell over on to the neighbors, which happened to be a daycare. The tree fell on a Saturday so no children were present. This is what it looked like.

The roots where rotten, even though the crown was healthy, the tree just went over on a day with no wind or rain. The back yard was back filled with soil after the house was built. Buried roots will suffocate, die, and then the tree will either die standing or fall overs.

The Second tree was a Spruce that was in competition with very large cherry tree, and as you can see the Spruce grew out at a dramatic angle to get any light it could.This next shot is after I Limbed and Topped the tree. Seeing the trunk bare it is evident how much of a lean the tree had. The top of the tree was almost 30from the trunk. If the tree would have fallen it would have crushed the neighbors porch and Maple tree.