Lumberjack, part II

What do you do when 40 years ago someone planted a row of pine trees spaced about 5 feet apart and now they're all scraggly and shading each other? And what if one of those trees is leaning towards the house? Well, a smart person would call a tree removal service.

I'm not smart.

I cut off the lower limbs and tied a couple of ropes to the trunk up as high as I could.

 

Then I tied the other ends of those ropes to the bumper of my little car. Yay for 1980's bumpers.

Then I cut most of the way, but not quite all of the way, through the trunk just below my ropes. That's probably a good 15 feet off the ground. You don't want to actually cut all the way through, because that trunk could go anywhere and if you're on a ladder, your only escape route is straight down. Your choices then become limited and all of them painful.

  

With the tree structurally weakened, I climbed in the car, revved the little 52HP diesel engine and popped the clutch! My car only weighs 2,200lb but it won the tug-of-war:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KDloT3tJ54

Once the top is removed, the lower section can be cut conventionally because it's too short to fall on the house.

I definitely do NOT recommend this. However, nobody died today (except the tree) so I guess it worked out ok.

We actually cut down three more trees today. The biggest was right in front of our living room window. I didn't have to do anything special there, because it was naturally leaning away from the house. It was a textbook cut, fell right where I aimed it. Here's the new view: