Tuesday, February 1, 2011

My Hemlock Tree Nightmare, removed/solved/ended...

The hemlock pine trees in most the USA are dieing, or already are dead from some accidentally imported disease. Hundreds of their corpses loom, and fall to the ground all around the Luck Cabin... but one huge hemlock in particular has been leaning towards the cabin, with a straight shot to smashing it in. HUGE. And so even though i planned to have the big dead thing cut down before the snows came, i ran out of time.
Then it came. The nightmare that the tree came down on the cabin... it was less a dream and more a partially wake vision as I rose out of sleep to sit up out of breath, heart beating fast, choked... i saw & heard clearly the thing come down through the roof in my minds eye and knew it had to be cut ASAP when someone could get up this frozen mountain.
It's no easy task to take down a tree like this with snow and ice still on the ground.......
me and the animals made a good audience ( ft. Lady Grey the chicken, the neighbors dog, JuJu the donkey!).
(watch the video for the slow drama of felling a giant hemlock. It's kinda cool and scary.)



I counted the rings to see the age... i counted the lines (not the space in between) and there was 87 rings on this big guy! almost 100 years old.

Xoxoxoxo

7 comments:

Aisha @The Bewitching Bibliophile said...

wow good thing you saved your home, thats massive, what you going to do with the wood? or even the bark, i could use some hemlock bark you know if you don't already have dibs on it.
wither thanks for sharing with us
how is the piping coming along?

Liberty said...

I LOVED this video!
wow. I was exclaiming aloud and laughing. thanks for sharing it!
it cut off at the end... you are going to use the tree to make a what?

slightly off topic, I keep seeing this craft on a blog I follow and think each time of how I could see you walking thru the woods with one :)

http://www.designspongeonline.com/2011/01/diy-project-blisss-colorful-log-caddy.html

Joe said...

Um? that hemlock looks perfectly healthy. I have 5 acres in NH and plan to build 2 cabins this spring. Most of the land is covered in hemlock. About 20K worth. I'd say your tree is worth about $300 or more. I have not heard of any disease affecting hemlock. Are you sure about this?

Joe said...

OK I watched the video and can see that it is not green, but the wood core is just perfect. You should have maybe cut the top and installed a wind generator if possible. I hate to see a tree that big come down. You could have built a watch tower for when the crazies come a knocking. LOL. Anyway be safe.
http://www.ehow.com/how_2102192_pine-needle-tea.html

Noise Blockers and Other Remedies said...

Apparently it's not so hard to fell a tree. It's interesting how like in life no tree will ever grow on its own without some other tree helping it along the way. Would seem that even in its demise, they will transit not alone. Blessings.

BTW - does your cat ever go out? Cat cam please. :)

Bort said...

Hey Joe are you serious?you havent heard of the The hemlock woolly adelgid?do you ever go outside or do you just sit around all day making weird comments?

http://www.na.fs.fed.us/fhp/hwa/

Joe said...

Bort,

maybe it has not made it way to New Hampshire. My hemlocks are good. I do see there is a problem. When the woolly comes. I'll just use Windex to kill them. Saw it in a movie.