What Did You Do Today To Prep?

[Big Chudungus]

I made plans to de-clutter the garage so I can get to tools and other stuff to do deferred oil, brakes, plugs, etc on my three vehicles. Sorta planning on moving out to The Boondocks and buy house, but first step is to get all vehicles in tip-top shape and work on various Micro-Kamper schemes for an epic House Hunting road trip later this year, and the big move.

[twinfin]

Today’s project was bringing down a large tan oak. I stay two years ahead on firewood so there’s some breathing room if injury or some other cause interrupts firewood production. Having firewood for this year and next is just as important to me as having a reserve store of food and water.

The tree was 30” in diameter at the base and had some weird leans to it and an uneven canopy making predictions about which way it would actually fall a challenge. The size of the tree meant any miscalculation could be dangerous so I’d been putting it off until today. This is the biggest oak I’ve cut down; most have been half this size.

I just took my time and thought it through. I marked my cuts on the trunk with chalk to make sure the face cut, hinge and back-cut were exactly where they needed to be. I tried not to rush, checked my cuts then double checked before driving the last back-cut toward the final hinge point. Halfway into the final back-cut, I drove in two wedges to prevent the tree from falling backwards in case my predictions about fall direction were wrong.

As my last cut neared the end, she started to move; I pulled the saw away and scrambled to my safe zone and down she came, exactly where planned! Success!!
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The fun part will be hauling the remains off the hillside and over to my processing site.