A mistake or not?

[Lowdown3]

A mistake? A kabobblation? A mess of trees falling together during a storm?

No, a pre-planned "accident."

I'm no lumberjack.....nor the rest of the song... but I do cut a fair amount of trees.

Couple things you'll notice here-

I've dropped these trees in a way so that-
1. I'm not working on the ground with the potential of digging the saw blade into the dirt/mud.
2. I've laid one tree over another in a way to make a bit of a "table top" which work to work on.

It's a little bit of a balancing act, for sure, but a little balance and "alavanca" goes a long way.

Your also working at comfortable heights versus constantly bending over. One tree, not a big deal to be bent over for a while cutting it up. The 4 or 5th of the day like this, yeah you'll appreciate the concept of the table top more!

Potential pitfalls-

As always you have kickback issues and the potential there. If your not paying attention and have your feet out too far, it's easy to cut a round just to have it drop on your feet. Finally the tree
has to be balanced and your cuts need to match that. In other words, if you cut too much on one side and nothing on the other, the propensity for it to tip is greater. Think a "see saw" on the playground.

The other option if equipment is available is to lift and maintain with help of equipment-



Here a small dozer is balancing a tree up in the air at a comfortable working height. Their is also a part of the bucket that extends up and out of the way for just flat bladed pushing type uses. Sometimes you can open that, then close it on the tree itself to hold the tree in place while cutting. When you do that, worrying about the balance point isn't as critical cause the bucket has a "grip" on the tree itself.

Then if you have the equipment right there, the rounds are loaded in the bucket and driven to an dropped where you will split them, thereby avoiding one more time of "handling" the wood as it's prepped for firewood.

Lowdown3

[Matt In Oklahoma]

Yup the lower back takes a beating during wood cutting if one isnt smart. I spent alot of years not being smart. Hard tasks like this take brawn n brains together or the day will be real long.
Never get too comfortable because you will make a mistake as you tire and thats when toes get smashed, fingers get cut and hopefully nothing worse. I'm big on having safety toes, eye protection and gloves when doing this.
Nice post

[610Alpha]

Yup the lower back takes a beating during wood cutting if one isnt smart. I spent alot of years not being smart. Hard tasks like this take brawn n brains together or the day will be real long.

My Grandma used to say work smarter not harder...I have modified her saying to "Work smart while you're working hard". I always took what my grandma said as to not do unnecessary work...like LD3 was saying about handling the wood 1 less time. Efficient.

I need to get a hard hat for cutting trees... i wear ear plugs when i mow the yard.