Adventures in tree cutting - My rant

[PurpleChicken]

We have a large tree that hangs over our barn and is infested with termites.
I've wanted to have it taken down but it's so expensive for a tree guy to do it
and we just had 18 trees taken down last summer for $2000 and that's cheap.
Me and my friends have taken big trees down before so we gave this a shot.
We tied it to my GMC 3500 truck. My friend tugged and I cut. All was going well.

Then it happened. The tree snapped and shifted in the wrong direction, I mean
really wrong direction. It pulled my GMC up off the ground, clipped the side of
my barn, and landed flat on my garden & Nissan pickup.

All I could do was laugh. What's the point in crying???

The damage:

$100 & 15 hours to repair barn
$2000 fiberglass cap plus $500 in Thule roof racks destroyed
The Nissan itself has a dent in the roof and the bed is spread open
My garden is smashed - 30% of the plants are wasted

No one got hurt. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

My $35000 Dodge Sprinter work van (company vehicle, not mine) was
sitting next to my Nissan but I moved it before cutting the tree just to
be safe. Whew...

Oh well. God has a great sense of humor.

 

[DuckLady]

I am glad you are ok. The rest, while pretty major is nothing in comparison with your safety.

 

[chicks rule]

Oh My, So glad no one was hurt, Sorry about the other stuff. I have a huge Walnut tree in my front yard I want gone soo bad, but, I don't see it happening any time soon. It has dropped quite a few good sized limbs from the ice storm and other storms, there is one good sized limb broken and hanging on another limb, I am afraid that one is gonna get me when I am mowing, and the whole thing leans toward my house,

 

[Mahonri]

Too bad you didn't have someone taping a video... you could have made enough money off of it to pay for the damages.

 

[Poison Ivy]

Glad you guys are ok everything else can be fixed. About 7 years ago a friend of ours was going to cut a limb off a tree. That hung over the spot that the new well electric was going to be put. He was up on a 40' ladder and then tied the limb off so when it was cut it would go the other way. Well let say that it didn't happen the way they wanted. It came around the other side of the tree hit him and knocked him off the ladder. He broke his hip and some ribs he was very lucky. They said if he had fell a foot to the right the limb would have killed him.

 

[Solace]

I haven't had anything on that scale happen lately, but I agree. When something like that happens to me I just have to laugh.

Glad no one was injured.

 

[Frozen Feathers]

$2000 to take trees down?!?! Wow, were they evergreens? Usually people will cut trees down for free to keep the wood around here. I had my 12 acres thinned out and got paid $1500 stumpage. Different worlds I guess.

Anyway glad you are okay!!

My Best friends DH is a forester and it's a risky, scary business. He busted his collar bone and 3 ribs after a pine decided to come down on him.

Oh and I think the problem was you were using a GMC...

 

[PurpleChicken]

Thanks everyone.

It's amazing as we get older these things just roll off our backs.

 

[Wildsky]

CR@P! I'm so sorry that really sucks!

I'm glad you guys are all ok, the damage can be repaired, I know with lots of $$$..

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
Hey. I like my good ole GMC. I wish the tree fell on that, not my Nissan Frontier.
My GMC is my beater truck. My Nissan is my daily driver.

Tree guys down here are expensive. Most of the trees were hanging over the
house so the use a bucket truck and took them down in pieces. They left the
wood on-site. I would have had them take the one down over the barn but the
barn wasn't built this time last year.