Timber! The Maple Edition

Yesterday from 9AM to 8PM, Dad and me cut up a fallen maple tree.  Dad did really well.  He only broke one chainsaw bar, and only went through two chains.  By my estimate this tree weighed 7 and a half tons.  Like the smart person I am, I made sure to take plenty of photos of what happened.  Here we go.

First, this is what we were up against, a fallen Silver Leaf Maple Tree.

To show you the shear size of the base of the tree, check this out.

As you can see here, the bottom/ base of the tree was rotten.  That's why it fell down.

Then we cut the tree into usable parts.

Then, even Dad had to get into the pointing thing.  (If you don't get it, you missed the pointing blog.)  But what's up with that hat?  I guess it's ok to get chainsaw grease on it.

Then, even I got a little silly.  I start pointing, but with a twist!  But what's up with my face in this photo?  It looks like I got a piece of cake in my mouth.

Here's the final tally.  Dad had 35 pieces of wood for wood turning.  I had five for instrument making.  Two for guitar bodies, two for cello sides, and one for a guitar back.  Here's the picture of the wood, and a really tired Adrian.

A lot of you might be wondering if that pile of wood should be a lot larger.  You have to figure that we had to throw away a lot of the rotten wood.  We also got rid of the outside bark on a lot of the pieces.  Also, when the tree crashed it cracked some of the wood on the inside so we couldn't use that part.  But it should be noted that any waste wood got put into the ditch so that it would hold the riverbank. 

So the next part is going to be fun, and deserving of it's own blog.  The wood has to be carried up the hill so that we can put it into the blue trailer.  We can't bring a vehicle down the hill since it is so wet and steep.  So Dad and me will have to use a wheelbarrow and hand cart to bring the pieces of wood up the hill.  And understand this, that hill is insanely steep and slick.  I know of a few pieces that will have to be carried by hand.  But we will wait until we are healed up from our hard day of work before we start hauling that maple up the hill.