Pop quiz:
You’re walking in the forest and you see this tree.
What do you do?
- Marvel over the crack and continue on with the hike. Nature will take care of itself.
- Marvel over the crack and make a note to invite your father-in-law over with his chainsaw.
- Marvel over the crack and decide that it’s too dangerous to leave and go find a saw to deal with it yourself.
- Marvel over the crack. Poke sticks in the crack to try and lever the tree off the stump. Fail. Decide that this tree must come down right this minute. Decide that the best tool will be a sledge hammer. Saw, pshaw.
So my answer would probably be ‘B,’ but of course my resident lumberjack saw an opportunity to advance from his most recent experience felling a tree with an ax to be even more manly. The words “I could be Thor!” did in fact come out of his mouth.
A couple of hard whacks popped the tree off its stump–all while I watched and photographed from a safe distance. However, the tree is still standing more vertical than horizontal, branches tangled in his closest neighbour.
We are now moving on to plan B.
What would you do? Any idea what made the tree crack like that? We had a big ice storm the other week, so it could have been the weight of the ice, but other trees that came down didn’t crack horizontally across the trunk. Anyone else living with someone who fancies himself a god?
Home on 129 Acres 
My husband would have grabbed a chainsaw and cut it down, and then skid it home with the tractor bahahaha. He then would have told me how awesome he is for all the free firewood he managed to get. Unless it was a saw log, then he would have told me how awesome he was for getting free lumber. All true.
It’s good that our husbands have such self-confidence. We need to clear our trails a bit more before we can get the tractor in there. Oh, and our own chainsaw would be really handy.
Don’t tell Andy I said this – but chainsaws (when safetly and properly used) are where it’s at. He is excited as he just purchased his pretty much dream chainsaw. That said, we also have about three or four others at the house. All I can say is his Dad is a forester haha. It’s in their blood.
Foresting is what my FIL does now that he’s retired. Honestly, my fingers are crossed that one day he just “accidentally” leaves a chainsaw or two at the farm for us… oh, and his wood splitter too. Wood splitter is where it’s at for me.
Looks like Matt is really enjoying this lumberjack stuff. 🙂 Judging from the missing bark higher up, I’d say this tree has been dead awhile (disease?) and was weakening from rot. Some past windstorm may have swayed it enough to crack it, but the surrounding branches kept it vertical. That’s my guess.
The tree seemed pretty healthy to me, but now that you’ve pointed out the missing bark, I’m thinking maybe not so much.
Terrible guess. It was the healthiest tree on the planet. Weighed about 2000 pounds. I’m huge.
Ahem. I stand corrected.
Myself, I prefer taking trees down with my bare hands.
I tried that… for about 10 minutes. Apparently I’m not as huge as you, Dave.
Maybe the beaver had a manly day as well…
Could be…