Your first tree...

[sotc]

Too much blather about great tree falling abilities lately. Do you remember you first fall? Mine was a Doug-fir maybe 18 or 20 diameter. I didn't really understand the gunning sights or parallax error. I just looked at the sights and cut, fooled around till my humbolt matched corners and sent it directly into another tree. Siderod laughing, said why'd you do that? I said I wanted it to go a little to the left. He took the saw, got the tree down and showed me on the stump how the tree went right where I aimed it. Live and learn

 

[Tucker943]

Mine was a black locust. Had a bad spot in it 1/3 of the way up. Nothing outrageous. I threw up when I cut the top out of it.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Lordy! Why the barfing???

 

[Husabud]

Mine was a Black Locust too, about 75 foot and 22 DBH it had a mild lean away from a motel. I climbed it most awkwardly and took the top out with little issue other than nerves. I repelled down and notched the spar for the same lay. When I made my back cut I cut through my hinge at some strange angle and the thing came back at me. I was able to get out of the way just in time to see it smash the tailgate of my pickup. Boy did all the boys laugh.

 

[bonner1040]

They all feel like the first one sometimes... Whenever I have targets, or back lean, or anything other than an open field tree...my pulse pounds so hard, my breath gets short and I forget all about the confidence and the experience.

Looking back I dont really remember the first tree I felled, or even the particularly successful ones...The ones that REALLY stick out in my memory are the close calls, the ones that JUST fit, or where I was somehow protected by the grace of something greater.

 

[Burnham]

I don't think I can remember that far back...

Actually, I do. It was the first of a series of pretty large cottonwoods on a USFWS wildlife refuge. Leaners all, towards a road that we closed. Had a good sized ag tractor with front loader bucket on it to push them off the pavement.

I got lucky, 'cause I sure didn't have any skill or knowlege. Nothing of consequence to report, though I'm confident that stump forensics would have shown dutchmen galore, and partially severed hinge wood, no doubt. The whole concept of hinge wood most likely was vague, at best.

 

[Tucker943]

Lordy! Why the barfing???

Nerves. The rocking motion of the spar combined with creaks and groans from the bad spot 25 feet below me.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Ahhh. I can't remember my first toss, but I do remember my first line clearing with a hydraulic circular polesaw. I left hangers everywhere!!!

 

[SkwerI]

I've never barfed in a tree, can't relate to that at all. The only thing that made me barf and I kept going back for more was alcohol.

First tree of substance that I recall cutting down was an 18"-20" leaner over a yard, about 45' tall. Couldn't drop it because of power lines, but no real targets directly underneath. I owned a lineman's belt and spurs but had not yet learned how to tie a friction hitch, although on this tree there wasn't anything to tie into anyway. I climbed up, shimmied out and pieced it out into the yard, doing the shiny heiney all the way back down to the straight trunk. Got my neighbor buddy to help me clean it up and he got pissed at me because I made $700 and only paid him $100.

 

[SkwerI]

I actually spent a couple years cutting mostly citrus trees and small stuff from the ground. I remember hiring climbers back in the early days to put stuff on the ground for me. My very very first tree was a dead orange tree in a lawn customer's yard. I had another customer who wanted to sell me a chainsaw for $40. I got him to let me take the saw and go cut down the dead orange tree for $50, then come back and pay him for the saw. This was also my first time running a chainsaw.

 

[Old Monkey]

I don't specifically remember the first tree I fell. I remember it was at a saw training put on by the Forest Service at a work station above Lake Oroville. My nerves came from having never in my life started a 2 cycle engine. I had to ask a buddy what to do. I had no idea what the choke did or anything. I think I did passably well on falling but got the saw stuck while bucking on a hillside.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

WHen I think back I think it was one I actually climbed. A pine right over some shrubs with a lean on it. Not real big, 40-45 foot. Free climbed it and tied myself to it with a bowline around my waist, no saddle. Topped it (probably with out a face cut) pushing the top out to clear the shrubs. Then worked my way down the tree leaving stubs all the way down till I reduced its weight to pull it over. Took another 6-8 foot section off and came down. Notched it as best I knew how at the time and had my friend pull it over. Clipped one of the shrubs but I managed to save everything I was supposed to. Huge mess I had to clean up. as no ground clearing was done while I was up there. I remember hitting the ground and saying to myself, "there has got to be a better way.". Right there after, I came into possession of a lines men's belt, gaffs and made a couple of flip lines out of some 3 strand...
I can honestly say that I probably should not still be walking this earth
Almost all my saw work before hand was cleaning up what others had felled. Sometimes I think that was more the dangerous side of the early work I did.

 

[stig]

It has been to long and too many trees.
I don't remember the first.
Most likely it would have been a pulp tree, since I started out as a pulp cutter.

I do remember the saw, though.
A Jonsered raket 70.

I saw it a few years ago in a Swedish logging museum.

When you see your first saw in a museum, you know you are old.
As simple as that!

 

[woodworkingboy]

Mine was a Walnut, felled onto a driveway. In those days I was only cutting to get the material for woodworking, it never occurred to want to do it for other reasons. Used my 076, the larger saw that I learned on.

 

[rskybiz]

A beech my father by my side, heavy jonsered I could not pull over. Looking back I know it was his way of exciteing me to help with firewood.

 

[treesandsurf]

I remember the first big tree I cut, was a large willow (salix) over a pond. I had to remove a large leader on one side to make room to plant underneath (for sun). I had this notion that I could cut through it quick enough to get it to come clean off the cut (it was about 20" at a 45 degree angle). Well half way through the thing split and barber chaired and fortunately twisted away from me. I walked away pretty shook up and decided I'd better find someone to learn from....

jp

 

[Jed]

Cool thread Willie.

Mine was a 28' Pinon, (pronounced "Pinyone") in the mountains of Pecose, NM. The smell of the sawdust! The subsequent gushing sap! I actually counted the rings, and found that tiny little pig to be one-hundred and nine years old. After that experience, I decided that if I cld ever do that for a living, I wld be the happiest man alive.

I do love the res. arbo. thing, but I still think that I need to be in the woods.

 

[flushcut]

The first tree I cut was a ash at my parents house using a POS Homelite. I climbed up and set a pull line and used the line as a zip line out of the tree kind of fun but at that time I was more interested in rock climbing than trees.

 

[Tree Reb]

I really can't remember, but I got my first axe for my birthday when I was eight so I could cut firewood. My father was very practical.

Same year there was a play at school, they never knew what to do with me being the loner/rebel type so they put me in a tree prop and said just stay there. So I did.

 

[stig]

I really can't remember, but I got my first axe for my birthday when I was eight so I could cut firewood. My father was very practical.

So did you ever do the George Washington thing and whack a cherry tree?

 

[Bermy]

I kinda sorta remember...I worked at a hotel that had a conservation area and we would go out there one day a week and cull invasives.
I had had some initial instruction (like, a day) back when I was an apprentice and dredged it up from memory. We had a homelite and some earmuffs, I was very proud of my waist high felling cut with the sloping backcut. Trees went where they were supposed to though. Casuarinas, probably 10" x 30'

I also remember the first time I had been properly instructed and was let loose to fell trees properly, I was so charged when they all went so smoothly, then being taught how to cut fore and aft leaners and release hungups...I caught the bug!

 

[Burnham]

That SOOO reminds me of learning how to deal with nasty, barberchair-inclined, large leaning red alders from Dent, back some 25 years ago. The magic of that bored back cut just charged me up no end. Afterwards, I went looking for those bastards, just so I could slay them without getting slayed .

 

[gf beranek]

The first time I run a chainsaw was topping out a small dead tree. I can't even remember what species. I come down all proud of myself and told my foreman, "That was my first time!" He said, "It showed."

Nearly all my saw learning was in the tree. And I learned all about tension and pressure after splitting out a number of big limbs and spars. "So that is what an undercut is all about, hey." On the ground I was only allowed to cut stumps and suckers. As my foreman did the actual fall jobs. He would never trust a rookie. Me!

However so, my first fall was a nice old growth Douglas fir. Though it took needling my foreman before he would allow me the chance. Ridge top trees. Only about 150' tall. There was quite a few of them to take down actually, and I was topping the trees out so they could be felled without taking out the power lines. When I come down out of the tree my foreman, Jim Nix, would fall the stubs. Mac 125 with a 60" bar.

One afternoon on that job I told Jim, "You know, Jim, I'll never get to learn how to fall a tree if you're the one doing it all the time." After much more needling he caved into my request. And with Jim over my shoulder I could hardly say I fell the tree, but he never touched the saw and I laid the fir between stumps right where he told me to put it. He said, "Beginners luck." He was never one to praise.

In those years I watch very keenly what every foremen did on the stump when they fell trees, and I had learned what the sights were all about and squaring up a hinge,, before I fell that fir. Though I must say handling that 125 was a bit more than the XL 12 I used up in the tree to top it out.

I maybe had two years in by that time.

 

[GASoline71]

That SOOO reminds me of learning how to deal with nasty, barberchair-inclined, large leaning red alders from Dent, back some 25 years ago. The magic of that bored back cut just charged me up no end. Afterwards, I went looking for those bastards, just so I could slay them without getting slayed .

These... many of these when I was young. They were growing like weeds on my grandpas property. from 5" to 30"... They were our main source of firewood for about 10 years. Not to mention the orange crap that stains your clothes and skin like a permanent marker... Hate them things...

Gary

 

[tophopper]

Dont remember my first felling experience. I do remember my first climb. A Silver Maple to prune......I put my hooks on backwards....spikes pointing out...lol.
Just a minute before I told the client " oh yeah Ive done this hundreds of times".......not



......and yes, I said hooks for pruning! Humble beginnings!