Too much mass for the BX25D

I had a few River Birches on my lake. Wanted to get rid of a couple (out of fifty!) These two had quite curved trunks and were leaning out ofer the lake, living on the edge.
First one, maybe 8" in diameter and forty fee tall/long (tilted over the water). Cut, dropped, put a chain on it and lifted it out of the water, diced and dispatched. Thirty minutes. One full FEL.

Second tree. 16" in diameter. close to seventy feet long. Dropped. Tried to lift the butt with the BH..... Barely able and front tires off the ground. Unable to drag it at all. Tried the winch. Broke a 7,000 test rope.
Several hours later, I managed to drag it about three feet.Cut off the butt and put it under the trunk as a roller. Still cannot drag it, still barely able to lift the tree. The 18" long butt weighed probably 60 pounds and I am 59.
Tomorrow, I put on the waders, walk out in the muck and will try to delimb some and if possible, cut the bottom ten feet off. Hopefully, if that all works, enough weight will be off it that I can pull the rest out of the water.
It is gong to be a long day. I already battled this one tree over four hours.

Builds character.

Done for today.

Tree is out. I used snatch blocks, one at the tree I was pulling from the lake, one on a tree about 50' away.
Routing of the pull rope was from a shackle at the tree in the lake to a snatch block at the stationary tree then back to the tree at the lake where a 2nd snatch block was on the shackle then the end of the rope to the winch on my tractor. 3:1 ratio was what was needed. Very slow going. 20 feet of winch cable only pulled the tree five or so feet. Just enough to make two cuts and move three logs. I kept a log under it as a roller.
Never had to put the waders on or walk in the lake. However, the limbs that landed in the bottom of the lake pulled massive amounts of muck. Because of th weight/drag of the muck, even small long limbs were tough to get out. It was not until I had a couple of 20' long wrist diameter ones at the end of the job could I chain it to the BH (with FEL loaded with several hundred pounds of logs as ballast) and drive the tractor, pulling the branches.
I filled the FEL with 10 loads of logs and took them to the neighborhood burn pile. I Now have all muck coated, leave cover branches to dice and dispatch, Probably six loads at a minimum. Then the rest of the muck on the lawn will probably get ten more FEL full to dump in the swamp.
I was so muddy at lunch time, that I stripped off my clothes out side and rinsed my self and the clothes off with a hose. Then washed the clothes again in a sink with dish soap and I'll run a load in the washing machine just of today's filth.
I'll finish the tree tomorrow and work on the muck.

I am EXTREMELY careful anytime I use a saw or anything sharp. First thought is am I safe? Second thought is what is the safest way to do this? I had just gotten a new Stihl saw, small, 14" bar and about 7.5 pounds. Half the weight of my 18" one. It really went though the wood and you could feel it try and kick a little. Big bites makes for slightly riskier work. But the lighter saw was less tiring. So having a more 'active' saw was worth it because I was not as tired from running it for five hours. Just had to be more careful.

It is always a bigger job than you originally thought.

Finished up today, hauled all the muck coated branches (7 FEL 'over loads'), then moved 8 FEL of muck off the lawn. What a mess. At least I am not as filthy as I was yesterday.

I still have a lot of debris in the lake at one end where the wind blows it in a little cove. Probably be two days (at least) of pitch forking and moving loads of sticks and leaves.

I'd of taken pictures but I was so muddy I could not afford to take the time to stop, get cleaned up, take a few pictures then get back to work.

I never imagined that a tree in the water was going to 'rake up the bottom' so much. Or be so hard to pull.

85Hokie said:

great early advice Skeets!

with enough rope, man can lift almost anything!

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With enough cash, he can get another man to do it..........

My mom used to say '...well, call someone to do it. You can watch from the house..........'

Grandad4 said:

Nasty situation you had there. Does the benefit of hindsight give you any ideas of how you might have done the job more easily (other than hiring it out)? Ordinarily one might think of taking the tree down in sections, removing the limbs, guiding the fall with lines, etc., all of which would be very difficult due to the "water hazard".

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Only a 'tree monkey' could of delimbed the tree. Not me. I'd of had to hire the tree guy, who is typically booked out six months and we had a lot of tornado damage last Thursday so he would of been 'overbooked'. The tree had such a bend to it, over hanging the lake that roping it to steer its' fall would of done nothing unless I used a tank to pull it. Had I tried to use my little tractor, it would of tossed the tractor into the pond like a COX .049 airplane on a string. 70' long/tall all in a giant arc that the top came down and almost touched the water 30' offshore. A big 'C'.
Honestly, I never even considered the branches land in the lake and embedding themselves in the bottom muck. I also did not think the wood was so heavy. Twice what a similar sized gum or poplar would be, triple of a pine.
I had been working for about three hours when I felled the tree. Normally, a tree like this (length and number of branches) with the BX would of been gone in just a couple of hours. When I could barely lift the trunk the tractor BH after probably an hour, I was sapped of energy and mental capacity. Hence my failure with the winch. A new day (with a clearer, refreshed brain) and I was able to winch it out. I suspect sitting in the water overnight just served to embed it in to the bottom more. Part of what made the removal such a problem was the mess.
But it is done. Spent today clearing the area where the stream that feeds the lake had deposited all the silt and washed down stream sticks. Still needs more work but nothing is above the water., so at least it looks nice from the house. I had arranged for a neighbors kids to come work for me, digging the area out but they have been a no-show.
Broke the 100 hour mark so it is time for another oil change. Washed (well rinsed) all the splatter of mud off of the tractor and will do the oil change later in the week.
I am very tired.