What Can Go Wrong When Felling an Elm

We saw raccoon footprints in the woods today:) and BIG canine prints as well :) (the coyote we’ve seen trotting up the creek bed and through the ravine is as big as a small German Shepard); all that’s left of the sacrificial squirrel is gray fur, like chalk dust painting the scene… But the elm wouldn’t come down. Now that’s a first for me to witness no doubt…what can go wrong when felling a tree à one thing is: when it doesn’t come down! Now it’s perched like a booby trap, no more than a thread holding on but high overhead, maybe 60 feet (?), the branches still cling, like a mountain climber’s fingertips on an upside down climb, to the neighboring oak…way up in the sky

I figured: use the tractor and just give it a nudge. Oh no, said Dad, the bottom could kick out and flip the tractor on its back…

Maggie and I got a chain from the barn and Dad wrapped it around the bottom part of the treacherous (precariously positioned) tree…but I’d grabbed the wrong chain – only one hook – so he could not attach it to the tractor…

Maybe it’ll get windy. I swear, it seems all it’d take is the weight of a squirrel jumping around…

Meanwhile, we’ll avoid that path in the woods :)

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