Widow Maker

[Species8472]

Spent 10 hours today dealing with a widowmaker that's been on my list for a long time. Finally managed to free up my company backhoe for a weekend. No way i wanted to tackle this sucker without it. Tree in question was an oak with pronounced lean over my driveway and a "V" base that was collecting water and starting to rot at the base. Measured the round that was from about 7 feet up the trunk and it had a diameter of 23 to 25 inches at that height and a circumference of 6.5 feet. Estimate the tree height was 75 to 80 feet laying on the ground.

Round from 7 feet above ground:





Rounds lower than this were not measurable as they came apart when i cut them due to the rot. The view of the tree laying on the driveway:



Stump - cut off at about 4 feet above the ground:



Hydraulic assist to cut rounds:



Had to fully extend the hoe end to keep the rear end on the ground:



Loading rounds:



All in it took 10 hours to drop the tree, remove the limbs, cut all the good wood into 16 inch long lengths and load and move everything to my splitting shed (about 3/4 mile away). Went through 7 tanks of fuel on the saw in the process.

[flightattendant100]

Lot of tree…. Lot of wood! Lot of job.Wow

[agingcrossbower]

Boy, that is a chuck of wood. More tools and less muscle would work of me. Did you ever get around to counting the rings?

[Species8472]

Boy, that is a chuck of wood. More tools and less muscle would work of me. Did you ever get around to counting the rings?

Did not count the rings but guessing +/- 100 years. Edit - Actually just looked at one of the pics of the rounds and anywhere from 8 to 20 rings per inch of diameter. So assuming a radius of 12 inches times an average of 13 or 14 per inch nets about 150 years old.

[agingcrossbower]

Wow, that is amazing Species. If that tree could talk.