Dead Tree (Day #3)

You need to read Dead Tree (Day #1) & Dead Tree (Day #2) first.

So it's the tennis ball in pop sock, attached to fishing line attached to rope trick today.

Youngshanks is becoming quite an expert in getting the ball over the branches, but however careful we are the result is much the same as with yesterdays string, either it got tangled up and broke or the knot between the line and the rope caught as it was going over the branch and again the line broke. Time to go in and watch Hibs v Motherwell and also time to think how we can make the knot less bulky.

At half time we go out for another try, this time with tennis ball in pop sock, attached to fishing line attached to prusik loop, attached to two 8ft slings, attached to rope, and yes, almost as unbelievably as Hibs being 1-0 up at half time we succeed and we get the rope perfectly over the top branch. We returned to the match, 1-1 was the final result. I'm happy with that, the performance at least was less dire than expected, there's actually hope for next weekend when we'll be up at Hampden hoping for a minor miracle.

Youngshanks returns to his revision and I set about encouraging the top branches to part company with the trunk, but they positively refused. I know, I'll attach the rope to the car again, okay it'll mean a direct pull as it's a shorter bit of rope, but at least I'm pretty confident it'll work. So here we go, I feel the rope tightening and then suddenly it releases - great it's worked - strange I didn't hear any cracking though - now why is that leylandii moving like that? Surely the branch didn't travel that far.

I get out of the car to see the whole tree has been pulled over - uprooted! It fell straight down the natural fall line, directly towards the house, but as I always knew it came nowhere near reaching it - a good thirty feet short - I had actually measured this out beforehand, but would I have pulled the top branch with the car if I'd thought this would be the outcome? Well probably not.

The leylandii has lost a couple of its lower branches, but that's no great loss. The woodpeckers don't have their fifteen foot stump to play with - that's a pity, but the tree is down and I'm alive, that's a result.

Actually for those that worry (like Mrs L), there was actually a very high safety margin in everything I did, there's no way I was going to read the headline "Man demolishes neighbours house while attempting to fell tree with Angle Grinder".