Lucy lent Mic her 4 wheeler with chains, but the snow is so soft that the moment he went off the trail he was two feet down into the soft snow. After pulling the machine out twice we headed back and got him the old snowmobile. I hadn't wanted to use it as cardiac hill has bare spots (south facing) but I didn't care that much about the old machine.
We headed back behind the yurt to winch out a couple of logs I had cut a few days before, Sure enough I got a sisteen footer almost out when I stopped on a slight hill. Just ten more feet and we would have been home free, but no such luck. I'll try Saturday when it is colder but I think it's stuck until the snow melts and I can get back in with the tractor and pull it and its mate out.
Back to the main road Mic and I cut down this giant three trunked pine beside the trail. The trunk had rot on it and one of the trunks was full of woodpecker holes so I wanted it down before it fell on its own accord. This is the biggest tree I had ever cut! It was so big that I put two notches in it side by side and still had six inches in the middle that I had to cut after. With a 16 inch blade, that makes the trunk at least 40 inches in diameter. Huge! Mic and I had cleared two escape routes and I kept an eye upwards as I cut watching to see if the dead bows decided to drop and become widowmakers.
Luckly nothing fell an when I made the back cut the tree slowly fell exactly where we wanted it too. The nice thing about big trees is that they take a while to fall so you have time to get the hell out of there. I swear the ground bounced under my feet when it fell.
The next task was to limb, cut it up and haul it away. Well one of the trunks was about 24 inches across but just the outside two inches were solid and the interior 20 inches were rot. I'm not sure what was keeping it up. The rest of the tree was good as far as we could drag it out. I'll need the dractor to get the remainder of the trunks out of the swamp and what the hell am I gonna do with the base of that tree!!! I'll have to move it off the trail, that's for sure. I wonder what sweetie will say when she see it blocking her route to the cabin?
After that monster it was an easy standing dead spruce. We got three logs out of that one. The wood was bone dry and no rot. Cutting it down was easy except for the down part as it stayed upright! For the second time I had to put a rope around the trunk an dpull it with the ATV. We could see the top swaying and hear the ocassional crack as it moved. I thought we should just leave it to fall down in the first good breeze but we ended up pulling her down and dragging the logs out.
The last to go was the dead spruce that had fallen a week ago at the top of cardiac hill. I had notched it to see what the wood was like a few days before Paul and Karen came up for the weekend. The had skidooed to Owls nest from the cabin for dinner. About an hour later we headed back only to have the trail blocked by the top of the spruce. Leaving standing trees has made me cautious after that. Anyways, I had limbed it so while Mic cut it into lengths I dragged it to the side of the trail and hauled it out. There are still three section at the trailside, too bid to haul in the soft snow. Sure is going to be a lot of hauling and cursing come Saturday morning.