I Found it in a tree.......

[Ryan Cafferky]

While doing removals in some of the outlying areas around Portland I have hit bullets in trees a few times.

The worst ever though was when I was stump grinding after removing a tree. I hit a huge coil spring and a brake drum. I was grinding with a vermeer 505 and I ripped off five of the tooth pockets and ruined half the teeth.

 

[Pollock777]

I found a railroad spike when I was grinding a stump grinding wheel threw it right into the tire and stuck in rim. Not a bad day no one hurt and a tire and rim $100.00 that the owner of the stump payed for. Biggest thing no one got hurt. Was a good day.

 

[Redbull]

I admire your positive attitude.

 

[Blake22]

Off subject here, but does anyone collect arrowheads?

I think it's safe to say I collect arrowheads.

 

[wood hacker]

I just hate the ******** who fasten barbed wire to tree trunks only for it to end up 6" within the trunk!!!

 

[b1rdman]

I just hate the ******** who fasten barbed wire to tree trunks only for it to end up 6" within the trunk!!!

You're not kidding...I was one of those ******* when I was growing up. I built a lot of fenceline on trees in my younger days. Now I own the property where we used to farm, and I run into barbed wire and electric fence insulators a couple times each year.

There's even a few trees near a pond with 8" spikes in them (to rest your rod on when horn poutin')...of course you can't see the spikes anymore.

Guess I have to accept the consequences huh?

 

[PTS]

I just hate the ******** who fasten barbed wire to tree trunks only for it to end up 6" within the trunk!!!

If this drives you crazy don't come to Iowa. Farmers here are notorious for this. You would say it is a way of life here.

 

[SilentElk]

I have hit my share of nails and barb wire as as much as anyone who does trees probably does. Worst was a 50" willow we were taking down in a from yard. We were making the bottom cut, about 12" up since the swell was real bad, and as we got nearly finished we started hitting something. 3 chains later and a couple trucks on rocks to yank the bottom 8' over the tree finally drops. Turns out the tree had split when it was 5 or 6 years old and someone had clamped the 2 halves together with a 10" bolt and some junky steel scrap for plates on the outside.

Best I have heard was a from a retired firewood cutter whom I did a ton of work for. Been 7 years so dont recall exactly, but apparently him, or possibly a friend he was working with, hit a gun in a tree! Their best guess the tree was a double leader and some hunter leaned the gun against it and couldnt find the gun. tree grew around it and next thing you know a guy with a chainsaw is cutting through it! Attempting to at least hehe. Not sure if it's true but a good story either way. I like to think it is. He also, personally I know, found a chainsaw bar stuck in a tree that had been there for a few weeks. Apparently the genius who left it didnt have a another saw, bar, money or friend to get a saw.

 

[Stumper]

Wire, nails, steel posts, waterpipes, rocks (one chunk of sandstone12 feet up the tree in a hollow) 1.25inch axle stubs, rairoad spikes, railroad rail, toy soldiers, toy robot, Highquality hardened tip screwdriver(I managed to hit that with only the left side teeth on the chain-what a mess), rubber tires, and my all time favorite was when a big elm hit the ground, split apart and an old waterpump fel out. I told the customer that tree was dying of a bad waterpump.

 

[SilentElk]

I told the customer that tree was dying of a bad waterpump.

I like that. Good soild witty esponse there. An instant classic. I think I'll joke around and tell customers the water pump is broke so the tree needs to come down. Hehe

 

[PTS]

It wasn't in a tree but right next to several stumps. Got out of my truck to check my load today and as I was getting back in I was looking at the stumps and noticed a 4 foot felling Lever that someone had left in the ditch. That was gracious of them. I will take good care of it.

 

[Redbull]

Hey, thats mine. Go check the lost and stolen forum.

 

[treesurgeon]

today i hit a cable at twenty feet up. cut some more and hit a nail at 6 foot. then at three foot, a dead squirrel in the tree. after removing it, i cut some more and i hit concrete. with two cuts left, i packed up and left. told the home owner that i was taking tomorrow off to figure out the bill for new chains.

 

[Tree Machine]

Eeeek. I hate trees like that. I once went through 11 chains in the last 4 feet of a trunk. Fencepost, cocked off at a weird angle. Shoulda walked away, but I stuck it out. Pics on that later.


For now, I was working with Sqwerl a few weeks ago in Florida and we came across this:

 

[Gearhead1]

Speaking of squirrels, I've had rodent/chainsaw encounters twice. The first occassion was while taking down a hollow box-elder (about 30 ft high and 22" trunk). I was bucking the trunk into firewood lengths and noticed what looked like fur coming out of the cut along with the wood shavings. Sure enough, I had cut a frozen squirrel right in two! The second time finding a squirrel was in another much bigger and older box-elder. My friend was climbing up and taking off one of the main leads in chunks, and I was running the ropes. While cutting in an approx. 12" diameter section, he (and I) noticed what looked like hemp rope coming out of the cut. He did have such a rope along the back side of the piece to catch it when it fell, but was not near cutting into it. When he was far enough through the cut that the chunk fell off, a squirrel with a shortened tail came running down the lead he was on and into another part of the tree. It turned out that the squirrel had been in a cavity formed from a broken and rotted branch.

 

[Sprig]

Maple trees! "Can you lower the stump?" Nope, not after the last bunch of rocks (one itty-bitty piece of basalt cost me two good chains, barely scratched it, sheesh). Never fails, they are notorious for picking up stones and I've found good sized ones 3-4ft off the ground.
When in the mill one day (I was pulling slabs) the quad-saw operator hit a chunk of metal in a big douglas fir log, these giant bandsaw blades are about 10" wide, about 14ft in diameter, and move at around 10,000ft per minute, it tore off most every tooth before exploding (loudly) into several large pieces of flying schrapnel. It turned out to be a 6" cannonball, the saw made it almost 1/4 of the way through before destructing and the guy tailing the saw (flipping over the cants etc) didn't stop shaking for an hour or so. That was the strangest thing we found in a tree but also found axe heads, bicycle parts, fencing, rocks (large and not so) and deer antler and nails of various sizes. When 'enviromentalists' were threatening to spike trees we had a metal detector installed.
Always take great care cutting anything near field's fence-lines, nothing quite like barbedwire or pagewire to wreck your day. :bang:

 

[PWB]

Found wire and nails in the past, but the latest incident involved *****. A big beech broke of about 15 or 20 feet up in the bush. Tree was obviously rotten and hollow wher the break was, but since we were cutting firewould, I moved about another 8 or ten feet up the tree and cut in to see if it was worth the effort. Apparently about halfway through the cut I disturbed a couple of critters. They took off out the end, one went up the standing stump, the other took of across teh bush trailing a little blood. Nasty way to wake up from a long winter's nap! I know where there's a page wire gate embedded in a big cottonwood, will try to get some pictures this week.

 

[smokechase II]

rocks

Sprig:
How could a tree pick up a rock? What mechanism?

It must be from a fork near the ground getting a rock in it and then a tree growing around it. Or similar with an odd shaped bottom.

If I'm flat out dead wrong again, don't hold back, go ahead and tell me.

 

[SilentElk]

Sprig:
How could a tree pick up a rock? What mechanism?

It must be from a fork near the ground getting a rock in it and then a tree growing around it. Or similar with an odd shaped bottom.

If I'm flat out dead wrong again, don't hold back, go ahead and tell me.

I have done alot of landscaping and alot of times when new rock is brought in they will dump wheel barrow on the tree. Often then will not even clean the new rock out of the crotches of trees and bushes. Kids also drag rocks to weird places.

 

[Sprig]

SmokechaserII, yep, when maples start out in a clump I think they must lift the dirt etc. between them as they get larger and grow around it. When we got rocks in firs or hemlocks in the mill I can think of at least a couple of sources; Being dragged along the ground and blasting nearby come immediately to mind. Sometime this week I have a fairly large pine that has to come down, someone years ago put up a crossbar with 1/2" poly rope and it strangled it to death (now deeply imbedded about 15ft up), its near my house and about 60' high, 16"dbh, and quite dead, hopefully not too tricky. We have a collection of pines that were killed by having fencing attached to them, I guess they're sort of sensitive (doesn't seem to bother the douglas firs though) and I guesstimate its taken about 15-20yrs to do them in, a shame really.