Daniel's work website at Sandia National Labs, Albuquerque, NM
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Daniel's work website at Sandia National Labs, Albuquerque, NM
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June 5, 2004 Well, this 70-80 year old cottonwood had to come down. It had burned in the fire that nearly burned our house down 2 years ago. The limbs were dead and were in danger of falling on our road. The tree was located at the entrance to our land and provided nice shade. A nice landmark to have, but no more. It had become too dangerous.
Cottonwood trees have very soft wood. When they die, their limbs, which can be very big and very heavy, fall with little warning. Several dead trees have lost most of their limbs already. Cottonwoods are also known as “widow makers” since their falling limbs can easily kill a man cutting down a dead tree. In windy weather, even the live trees can lose big limbs.
Taylor took the pics. Shelly looked on most of the day to make sure I did not get hurt. She also wanted to see the tree fall when the time came. Of course, the tree fell 5 minutes after she went to the house to check on a baking chicken. Nevertheless, she could hear the crash. She then hollered out the door, “Daniel, are you okay??” I answered back, “No, I’m dead!” She did not believe me. Ground really shook big time when tree fell. Like a small earthquake. Taylor helped me clean up much of the mess. In the second picture, notice the 3 circles in the wood by my leg. These are the marks left behind by using the car jack (shown on top the trunk behind the chainsaw) inserted into the chainsaw-cut to try to make the tree fall. The car jack can lift 4,000 lbs. It helped a little, but not much. Good old gravity takes most the credit. Took nearly 6 hours to bring down, even with the use of a chainsaw. The chainsaw blade could not reach the center of the trunk. Took 3 tanks of gas in the chainsaw to do all the cutting involved just on this one tree. Tree fell exactly in my direction as I watched. Like it was trying to reach out and take me with it before it’s final demise. The tree lost. Note that Frobes-pierre (aka Frodo the dog) is holding down the tree so it won’t get back up. It worked – tree has stayed down. What a dog.
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