5/30-6/1/06 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 12:20. It was sunny and warm. After moving in and having lunch, I got the .032 saw out and felled a 50 foot Doug Fir in the fern field. My plan was to fall it parallel to the road so that it would land in the cleared off old log pile.

I cut the front notch. Then just about when I thought the back cut was about deep enough and I was about to take the saw out so I could hammer in a wedge, the tree started going over backward and pinched the saw bar in tight. The tree was still standing upright, but the saw was locked in and I couldn't get a wedge in the kerf. I wasn't too worried because there was plenty of room for the tree to fall backward. It would just be in a more awkward place to work on it. I also wanted to learn how to fall trees where I wanted them and this was good practice.

I picked up an 8-foot spindle pole and put one end against the trunk about 8 feet above the ground on the back side. Then I pushed on the pole and found that I could move the tree. I pushed hard and the tree began to fall in the right direction. I took my saw out and stood back as the tree swooshed down right where I wanted it.

I measured the tree and found that it was 50 feet long. The butt was 10" in diameter. The trunk was 6" in diameter 22 feet out, and 4" in diameter 31 feet out. The whole log has a bow to it.

I started the fire again to burn up some more of the old log remnants. It was pretty dry so the fire burned pretty well.

I used the chain saw to limb the tree and then I used the spud to peel the bark off. The bark was super wet underneath so the sap would run off when I peeled it. It was pretty easy to peel with the sap up like that. The bark came off in nice big sheets.

On Wednesday morning it was 55 degrees and dry. I started the fire up again and stoked it with more old log sections. Then I went up and rigged up to fall another tree. This one was like an old friend to me. It was growing on the top of the high rock and I had used it quite a few times to raise my crane rigging up off the ground. I had cut some of its roots during the excavation and the building now shaded the lower limbs which were dieing. The tree didn't have much of a chance before I came along, up on that rock, but now its days were numbered. The entire trunk was covered with pitch showing that the tree was desperately trying to defend against boring insects, and was losing the battle.

If the tree were to fall naturally, it would hit the cabin so it was time to take it down. I also need the log for my staircase. I don't feel so bad about taking down my old friend since it will have an honored place in the building. The log will be extra sound too because the slow growth makes for tight rings and hard wood.

I started by limbing the lower branches, both to get them out of my way and to remove some of the weight that was tending to pull the tree over toward the cabin. The tree was leaning toward the cabin because that was the direction of the sun. Next, I got a 20-foot ladder and tied a 3/4" rope around the trunk 20 feet up. The rope I selected is stretchy like nylon but the rope doesn't seem to be made of nylon. I don't know what it is but it looks like cotton and stretches like nylon. I figured a stretchy rope would work best for this purpose.

I threw the rest of the rope as far as I could down into the valley behind the high rock. Then I took a 20-foot ladder around the pipe trail into the woods and set it up against a huge Doug Fir growing in the bottom of the valley. This tree was exactly in line with where I wanted to fall my old friend. At the top of the ladder, I found that I couldn't begin to get my arms around the trunk of the tree. I had a chain with me that I wanted to fasten around the tree, but standing up on that ladder, I couldn't get it wrapped around. With my face pressed against the bark, I would swing the end of the chain with my left hand and try to catch it with my right hand. I felt the chain a couple times with my right hand, but without being able to see it, and with unknown branches behind the trunk deflecting the chain, I gave up with that plan.

I got a stick, wrapped the end of the chain to the end of the stick, and tried to get the stick around the back of the tree far enough to grab it with my other hand. I could see the end of the stick, but I couldn't reach it. I needed a curved stick.

I climbed back down the ladder and found a nicely curved branch with about a 4-foot radius. I went back up the ladder and used this stick to get the end of the chain around the back of the tree so I could reach it. I got it on the first try, and luckily the chain was just barely long enough to reach all the way around the trunk so I could clasp it together. It was very tight.

Then I hooked a snatch block to this chain and ran the 3/4" rope through the snatch block. I climbed back up onto the high rock taking the free end of the rope with me. The snatch block, 20 feet up in that tree, was just about level with the top of the high rock. Next, I hooked a chain to the anchor hook on the end of the Grid D purlin and I hooked a come-along to the chain. I paid out all the cable on the come-along and pulled the hook and the rope together to take out as much slack as I could. Then, knowing how far it would reach, I tied a knot in the rope so I could attach the come-along hook. There wasn't much slack in the rigging when I hooked it up.

I cranked on the come-along to take all the slack out, but with that stretchy rope, I had to watch pretty closely to see if and when I was able to move the tree a little. When I saw it move, I stopped and left just that much tension on the rope.

In the process of rigging, a gray jay came around a few times for peanuts. I could see some birds in the trees that didn't look like gray jays and I wondered what they were. When I saw the jay I had fed fly back to one of these birds and feed it, I realized they must be juvenile gray jays maybe out on their maiden voyages. I'll probably be feeding them from my hands pretty soon.

I was now ready for the moment of truth. I fired up the saw and made the notch cuts. Then I cranked the come-along a few more cranks and moved the tree a little more toward where I wanted it to go. Then I made the back cut and with the tension I had on the tree, I was able to get the saw out without having it get pinched like the other time.

I put a wedge in the kerf and hammered it in until it was tight. Then I cranked the come-along some more and the tree kept leaning more. I hammered the wedge some more. The tree passed through vertical and was leaning about 4 or 5 degrees and just stood there. I cranked the come-along some more and the tree responded by leaning some more, probably 10 degrees off vertical. The back cut opened up so much that the wedge wasn't doing anything, but I just left it in there.

I still had plenty of come-along cable, and the tree was going where I wanted it to, so I wasn't worried. There were a lot of branches, however, that I knew it was going to hit. There was no clear channel for it to fall through, but there was a nice channel between trunks and that was exactly where it was headed. The branches were substantial though, and they were just holding the tree in place up there.

So I just cranked the come-along some more and pulled the tree down to about 45 degrees. It was still hung up but I could tell it was about ready to break loose. I was completely out of come-along cable at this point and I was thinking I might have to slack the rigging and re-rig to get more purchase. But before I did that, I decided to just hang on the chain holding the come-along and see if that might not be enough. Sure enough, that was all it took and the tree went crashing down into the valley below.

The trunk hit the edge of the high rock 16 feet out, so as soon as it hit, the butt end jerked up off the stump and sent my wedge sailing right for the cabin. It hit the wall right between the two windows. As I watched it sail through the air, I was kicking myself for not removing it when I had the chance. Fortunately, no damage was done.

My emotions were pretty high at that point after everything quieted down. My old friend was now nearly upside down with the butt 6 feet off the ground and the top down in the bottom of the valley below. The dangerous part was over and the tree was in exactly the position I wanted it in. I was drenched in sweat and sticky with pitch. I decided to take a lunch break, cool down, and clean up.

After lunch, I limbed the tree and rigged up to buck the butt log. I measured the staircase and found that I needed stringers that were 15 feet long. I decided to buck the log to 16 feet. I measured the trunk from the end and discovered that the sixteen foot mark was right over the edge of the rock. I took the rest of the tape down into the valley and found that the tree had been 54 feet tall above my cut. I used the cant hook to roll the log enough so I could get a piece of wood between the rock and the log. That would help prevent the saw from hitting the rock when I cut through it there.

I fastened a chain to the anchor hook on the ridgepole by using my old technique. I hooked the chain to a big rebar S-hook which was fastened to the end of an 8-foot 1x2. Using the 1x2 as a handle, and standing on the highest point of the high rock, I was able to reach up and hook the other end of the S-hook to the anchor hook. With the chain fastened to the anchor hook, I hooked a come-along between the chain and a choker around the butt. Since the butt was 6 feet off the ground, and the come-along and chain went up from there, I could barely reach the handle to crank it by standing on the high rock. I cranked the come-along until it started pulling the whole tree up.

I also hooked another chain from the first chain to the log below where I was going to cut. This would prevent the rest of the trunk from falling down the cliff and into the valley when I cut through it.

I wasn't sure which way the trunk would flex when I cut through it, but I guessed wrong. I thought that with the come-along tension pulling up, and the top of the tree on the valley floor, the trunk would sag where I cut it, rather than bow up. I should have known better, but I didn't think it through. So, I decided to cut through the bottom first so the kerf would open up and not bind my saw. I did my usual plunge cut through the middle of the log first and then proceeded to cut down toward the rock and that piece of wood.

As soon as I cut through, the butt of the log drooped down and the kerf pinched my saw bar tight. I realized I had made a mistake. The butt of the log was now about 5 feet off the ground and there was quite a bit of tension in the chain holding it, but the chain was at a pretty shallow angle. Nevertheless, I thought that maybe I could lift the log enough to free the saw bar. I tried it and it was pretty easy. I just needed some way to hold the log up while I retrieved the saw. I decided to use the cant hook for this. I put the end of the cant hook on the rock below the trunk, and then while lifting the log with my shoulder, I jammed the top of the cant hook handle under the trunk to prop it up. It worked like a charm.

Back down at the saw, I fired it back up and completed the cut through the log. The lower (actually the top of the tree) part of the log was held nicely in place by the chain, and the butt end of the log just stayed where it was, propped up by the cant hook and held by the chain. It was no longer cantilevered by the rest of the tree though. I now needed to lower the butt the five or so feet to the ground. I decided to yank out the cant hook and just let it fall. I knew it was going to be violent, so I stood back when I yanked. I knew that when the log fell, the chain would propel it toward the cabin, which was what I wanted it to do. The only question was how far it would go in that direction. The rock is slanting downhill toward the cabin but I figured the bark was rough enough to keep the log from sliding too far.

I yanked, the log came crashing down and jerked and slid toward the cabin. It stopped just about exactly where I wanted it to in the perfect place for me to work on it. Some things go exactly according to plan.

I used the spud to peel the log and the bark came off just about as easily as it had on the other tree. This one was not quite as wet as the other one though. The peeled log was so slippery that I had to be careful not to have it lying on pieces of bark with the slippery side up. I had to make sure the bark under the log was slippery side down otherwise the log would just slide down off the rock and hit the cabin. The log was really beautiful once it was peeled. It is nice and straight and super sound. It will make a perfect stair stringer.

On Thursday morning, I used two come-alongs fastened to purlin anchor hooks to move the 16-foot log down from the high rock and onto the porch deck. This took a lot of thought and tricky maneuvering to make sure it didn't dislodge a huge rock on the face of the cliff. I was able to snake the log down past this rock without hardly having the log touch the rock. That was a fun exercise.

After lunch, I went back up, pulled the rest of the trunk up onto the high rock, bucked another 16-foot log from it, and peeled both pieces. I fed the jays a couple more times in the process. It started to rain a little just as I finished peeling. I put away the tools, packed up, and left for home at 3:10 feeling pretty good about my logging work.