When Plan B doesn't work

The problem: Hung up
about 35 feet above ground.

I think it's mentioned somewhere else on this blog how I learned to attack difficult tasks from a friend on a sailing voyage. On long ones something is always going to go wrong and what I learned watching him was he always had the next thing to try if this fix didn't work. The trick is to keep thinking; as you try one solution be thinking of what you will do if this one doesn't work. Sometimes you have to go pretty deep into the alphabet to find the eventual solution.

Today off that list of procrastinated jobs, two are complete and a couple others are farther along the way.

The biggest was finally getting that blow-down tree to the ground from where it had hung up in another tree. That one went to plan D and a half. The way it fell and stopped at about a 45-degree angle probably 30 or 40 feet above the ground, it was still attached to the stump. Some time ago I cut it free from the stump, but that barely moved it in the other tree. 

Plan D: connected and cranking. Those chunks on the 
ground are from earlier pieces whittled off the trunk.

The next was an attempt with some climbing rope and my old small comealong. The way the tree had come off the stump it was jammed against a hillock made by an older stump and that set-up wouldn't budge it. Plus the small machine and thin rope started to look a little flimsy for the job. I've always been a little timid about such things after I saw a U.S. Navy film about how a line snaps back when it breaks under tension.  

To demonstrate the force, they lined up nine mannequins along the deck of a ship and then backed down on a line until it broke. The snap back cut the first six or seven mannequins in half, and hit the next two or three with a force estimated to be fatal. As that line on the tree reached banjo string tension I decided not to go further. At that point, I left it for a few weeks while my mind worked on Plan C.

That plan simply involved more force. I brought a bigger comealong from the cabin, this one a 4 1/2-ton contraption made to move mountains.  I also brought some bigger rope to aid in an attempt to increase the power of the tug on the tree. Unfortunately that didn't do it and for the second time the line reached banjo tightness and I quit again in frustration.

I can't say I came up with Plan D myself. I pointed out what I was faced with to a plumber who came by one day and he said oh that's where your have to cut it at an angle and keep working up the trunk until the whole tree comes down. I thought about that for a while and came up with a variation that prevented the possibility that the cut would close and pinch the chainsaw bar between the two parts.

Down, finally.

I put rope and the big comealong in place about three feet up the trunk and cranked on it until the device took up serious tension. Then I started cutting the angled trunk with a cut perpendicular to the ground.  Instead of trying to cut all the way through, at about three-quarters, and before the wood could pinch the blade, I shut down the saw and took up more tension on the line. That broke the tree right at the cut and it slid  down but stuck in the ground before it could fall all the way out of the bigger tree.

The trunk however did fall away from that hillock that had it jammed and onto flatter ground so I kept cranking on the comealong and the tree began to move. But this was progress in inches. Six or seven times the effort took up all the wire on the spool and the tree only moved maybe six inches each time. But toward the end of about the fifth with a pretty loud crack it fell part way down the obstinate tangled tree and when it did, that reduced the angle against the ground. The base didn't dig in as much as I cranked against it.

Two more resets and the tree started coming easily, moving as much as a foot on each setting. While this process was tedious, progress was being made. But I was losing ground in another way.  It reached a point where the distance between the tree and the one I was using to anchor the line was so short there wasn’t much room to pull it any farther. Archimedes had said he could move the earth if he had a place to stand and I was running out of a place to stand. There wasn't another stout enough tree close and in line to which I could anchor the rope and I was starting to see how I could get the four-wheeler or the Jeep close enough to finish the job. Those would have been plans E and F.

Stacked and drying.

But that's where the "D and a half" came into play. I pushed on the tree and found it moved side to side fairly easily. And, each time I shook it, I could hear cracking up where it was stuck.  So I kept shaking and in time with a loud crack up there somewhere the whole thing came down. Finally. One job that's been a bother since last fall and now that tree was on the ground.

It only took about an hour or so to buck it up and haul the wood to the growing pile. Sometimes great satisfaction comes from solving some rather mundane problems.

One less task to procrastinate about joined that growing side of the list. Last night I planted all the seeds in the flats and pots and arranged them in the sunny windows, so that one's done too. Oh yeah the right ball hitch is on the four-wheeler now and I have a new receiver for the other trailer so it, too, will take a 2-inch ball.

So, tomorrow is a day off. Except for a doctor's appointment which is near the big box hardware store where I need to buy bolts for the small trailer hitch and tie-downs for the new trailer. One leads to another and another. Vonnegut again, "and so it goes." And pleasant to know I had Plans E and F in the bank.

On taking procrastination to a whole new level