Brought down a sick Birch out back by the shop on Sunday:
It didn't go exactly where I would have liked it to since that would have been impossible, but it went right where I knew I could put it. I'd have liked to get it to fall well to the right of the cinder block in the photo, but as it was the huge limbs visible were originally pulling the tree heavily in the opposite direction along with a slight lean that way (it had an ugly gnarly top, I forgot to take a pic before dropping it), and the largest remaining birch also prevented me from putting it that way too without damaging it.
It's about 16" at the butt - my cant hook's handle is 4' long. FWIW that cant hook is probably older than even most members here. Anyway I estimate the main bole is about 30' long, and it doesn't taper a whole lot. The bottom 10' especially should mill up really nicely. There are also a lot of promising small crotches in the branches to turn handles etc. from. It's too bad I didn't get it a bit earlier since the sap is well up now, but I had a dead vehicle parked there until a few days ago.
I ended up a tad high on the back cut, probably 2.5", but it did the job. I left a bit of a dutchman on the far side (you can see where it tore some wood out; judge me if you want but it worked) to help pitch it out away from the other trees, and I also wedged it from that side instead of straight in. It went over really nice. It was some kind of tricky cutting though, in around the two still-standing Birches there without cutting into them. I couldn't just dog in and cut very much so I ended up cutting a lot of the backcut with just a few inches of the tip of the bar. I'm probably going to go in and take that stump down a foot or so again - there is some curly grain in the face where the hinge wood tore, so it might have some potential for a bowl or two, especially down farther where it flares out more.
The tree was under attack by the friggin' Bronze Birch Borer beetles - they're taking all the decent Birch around here that are out in the open and along the roads. The ones deeper in the bush seem to be doing OK so far. The top had been dead for a couple years, evident by its disintegration upon hitting the ground, so since it was a good-sized tree I decided to take it now while the rest was still usable. Otherwise the brown stain you can see will progress to rot within a year or two and it'll go hollow in a couple more.