[Chipmaker]

I had raised the level of water in our pond a few years ago, and again this year, to the point that we want it. I had one oak tree that we knew was going to bite the bullet, but it would not be wasted as I could use it for firewood. So the pond level was lapping at its roots, and we have had a ton of rain lately, and my soil is sandy, and this tree needed to be taken down, before it died from high water and water logged roots. Big plan was to climb it and limb it out piece by piece this coming Saturday when I get my best friends help, but today I decided to get a few ropes up in the tree and start on it. Got one rope up now I needed to get one more for my friend, and then I intended to go up and rig the drop lines etc so everything would be in place for saturday and maybe, just maybe drop one or two limbs today. Well I soon noticed the ground was pulled up and a tear was in the soil about 3 or so feet from the base, which was a sign of it upheaving. A few more checks here and there, soon changed my mind on rigging out and dropping this large oak piece at a time especially with two of us up in it. (It sort of was a leaner anyhow due to its growth in and among the pines and other trees, so all weight was esentially on one side.)

So, off I go to the place that sells dynamite. I figure since the roots are letting loose, I could maybe give it a one two punch one after the other and possibly loosen it up good, and blow it over to one side, and then my roots etc will also be out. It is only about 60 feet from the house, so I was not too keen on cutting it and then blowing out the roots without more cover on top of them. Got two sticks of dynamite, used a piece of rod and a large bar to ram a hole up right under the trees base, and set a charge. Towards the house side I ramed another hole and set a charge...I had to drop it close to the side of the pond, not in it, but still miss by gazebo and gold fish pond. Any other direction would mean removing a bunch of chainlink fence, chance of getting it hung in other trees etc and tearing up my centepede lawn. On this charge I used fuse, instead of the usual electric caps. Cut one fuse just a bit longer than the other, so one would go and then the next, hopefully in the right direction. Got back lit the fuse (there is a way to rig it so they both lite at the same time) and counted down. One muffled boom then another..........by George I think I got them right. The tree shuddered and started to fall in the precise direction I wanted it to go, just missed the edge of the Gazebo, and touched my grape arbor, and came to rest just about all on the edge of the pond with only the limbs for the most part on the pond side going in the water. hardly even disturbed the soil around the tree in the process. So I spent the rest of the day delimbing and cutting that huge old oak up into manageable sizes. Used the Ford 1720 and fork attachment on the 3 point to pull out and load up the main trunk pieces. Piled limbs up in numerous piles and used the forks once again to back into a pile of limbs, lift slightly and push them to the back where I will eventually burn them.

The tree (water oak) I removed is the one thats in the attached image before I did my thing with it today. Its larger than it looks as the top of the tree actually touched the limbs on the hickory tree that is up behind the sundial pedestal. Luckily it did not have a wide canopy as it was mainly verticle type limbs. It measured 32 inches DBH.

Only item that got destroyed in the process was a crepe myrtle between the pond and gazebo.........

 

[memmurphy]

"The Chipmaker Way" sounds a lot more fun without all the climbing.

Mark

 

[Argee]

That's a nice looking pond Chip....what's that line running across it?

 

[Live Oak]

Kewl!!!!! Very pretty place you have there Chip. You are cutting up firewood in this aweful heat and humidity? How is the fishing?

 

[Chipmaker]

Originally posted by Argee
That's a nice looking pond Chip....what's that line running across it?

Ah.......thats my electric fence line (poly / stranded wire type) to keep the geese we had from assaulting the ponds edge towards the house. I runs across one side of the pond directly in front of the gazebo on the hill, and makes a right towards the front field and chain link fenced area, that has a gate attached to the pole that the fence is attached to so it effectively keeps them in their area of the pond and out of our area of the pond and ground. Don;t know if you ever have been around geese, but they do make a mess. Ours was so tame you could not set outside without them coming up to visit and set there honking and carrying on all the time and also leaving a big mess. I hated to have a high fence installed on the ground around the pond, so this was the alternative. Its adjustable for any water level differences, and for the most part really not all that intrusive but still better than looking at any land installed fence. Fence has now been removed since we got rid of all the geese......

 

[Chipmaker]

Originally posted by Chief
Kewl!!!!! Very pretty place you have there Chip. You are cutting up firewood in this aweful heat and humidity? How is the fishing?

Yep, thats what I get for putting things off.........Actually all I am doing is cutting the entire tree into stove length pieces and just stacking it all up. I'll save the splitting part for cooler weather or when its raining out. In stove length it will still dry out pretty good if under a roof in the wood shed, and it won;t start to rot on me until its splitup later this year.

Fishing in this pond is great......We have bass in the 6 to 8 pound range and 10# plus channel cats. Shellcrackers are nice sized two with most going about a good hands spread in size.

Directly in front of the gazeebo I have 48" 1/2" x 1/2" hardware cloth installed in the pond to form a barrier or fenced in area which is secure from the larger game fish. Its in this area that we have koi and gold fish..........no pump needed, water is good, and no filters to clean. Fish can go from 12" deep to close to 40". The bottom edge of the hardware cloth is attached to recycled plastic lumber pieces and embeded inthe pond bottom, and extend up and into the bank. There is approximately 6" of fencing above the high water level, which is ficed by the height of my ponds outlet. The pond in all the years I have had it has never gone down any amount when we had dry weather as the ground water is relatively high and I am on river bottom as well. Pond size is pretty close to being an acre in size, and when we dug it had problems as water would run in and fill as quick as you pulled the dirt out, so we had to use a dragline and backhoe excavator on tracks to dig it. In the middle its approximately 20+ feet deep with the majority of the edges along the sides going up to 4 feet deep in about a foot or so from the bank.......