3 trees, 2 windows and ½ a barn roof

[Mk42gunner]

We had a bit of a thunderstorm here today, as I was going home to feed the dog and the snake catchers, aka cats, I saw quite a few trees down.

Went to pull in the driveway and oops, there is an eight inch thick elm limb in the way, still attached about twenty feet up. The top half of my big locust came down and got the two windows. Another locust that was dead halfway up lost the deadwood.

When I went to get a chainsaw, I realized the barn was a lot lighter inside than it should be, half the north side roof is gone. But wait, it gets even better...

Since the saws got rained on, the little one didn't want to start, but the old used and abused 455 Husky started right up. Of course the grease gun for the tip didn't work, and the chain acted dull so I just cleared the driveway and called it a day.

New grease gun and files are in the truck for tomorrow.

Robert

Oh and the electricity is out too.

R

[Winger Ed.]

Glad the trees didn't end up in your living room.

[Finster101]

Best of luck to you. It's always a mess trying to clean that stuff up. Be careful, leaning trees are always unpredictable.

[CastingFool]

That's a bummer, but glad it wasn't worse.

[Wheelguns 1961]

Last week we had gusty winds in advance of a cold front. A big branch from the top of a tree in my backyard broke off and landed on the power lines. The power lines started smoking and briefly caught fire. The power company came out the next day and fixed the electric. I just got my cable and internet back today. When the electric blew, it blew out my range (stove/oven combo), my clothes washer, my microwave, and my coffee maker. I still have a mess of cleanup to do in the yard. Good luck!

[lightman]

Sorry to hear that you had that much damage. We had a bad series of storms last month with some customers being out of power for up to 12 days.

[Teddy (punchie)]

Darn trees are great and great big trouble. We try to keep ours in check. The cost a bunch of $$ to remove and more in care, up keep and damage if they get too big. If too close to house I would cut them when I was cutting them. This reminds me we need to trim that now large silver maple. 5" branches will turn into 10" in a few years and then into 15" where its at would mean deck and siding damage.

Fruit for though in the woods we found a Maple 26-28 diameter. Exploded, there were 7' to 9' chunks trees was basically quartered. Little bit of ant damage in center, must have been holding water. Trunk was off the ground some 8' to 9' feet next section was what exploded. Tops was laying down hill must have been a 50' to 60' tree. Hit by lighting some time last spring as no leaves and all of the wood was bleach out. Just think about that hitting you or your house.

Tree was on a south facing hill about 10 feet for the top and in the woods. No sap from that one. Timber was gone long ago as darn ants in very center.

[IHuntDragons]

Glad everyone is ok, and living in OK we know what kind of damage that these storms that pop up this time of year can do. Could have been much worse.

[Markopolo]

i am sorry about what happened, but possibly you could make lemonade out of this Lemon you have been delt... dig out the chainsaw mill and make you some boards outta them downed trees to repair the barn???

good luck sir...

[Mk42gunner]

To update the situation is both better and a slight bit worse than I thought yesterday.

The better: I got both chainsaws sharpened and running today, the little husky needed a carb adjustment on the low idle side. And I got a little bit more fire wood cut from the limbs, still have a ways to go.

The bad: According to the news last night one person was killed in rural Butler when a tree fell on their house. That is all I have heard on that, praying for their family.

A few more trees lost some smallish limbs, mainly a couple of cedars and one wild cherry that lost one about eight or nine inches in diameter.

Robert

[samari46]

Had a huge water oak in front of the house. Got zapped by lightening some years back. Dropped a huge limb in the driveway and thank goodness it didn't hit the house. Chain sawed into manageable pieces and off to the burn pile. tree trimmer got $2500 for atking it down and earned every bit of that money. Whole crew spent all day getting it down. Main trunk was over 10' feet thick. And they still had to come back the next day to take down a huge pine as that one had some big cracks in it. Water oaks have shallow rootballs and they do not extend that far into the ground. My neighbor had a bunch lining his property line after the last hurricane he had about 6 down on the ground. While he was chain sawing went over and asked if he needed a hand. When he saw the bucket on my Kubota all he could say was thanks. Bucket is about 65" wide so a lot of limbs were cut more or less that width so's I could pick them up. Took us two full days to cut and carry all that wood out to the curb so public works could haul it away. I keep nylon slings and shackles on hand for the larger stuff. And a 25' tow chain just in case.. That two days used everything I had. His brother comes over with his tractor so we moved all the cut wood. While his other brother did all the sawing.
Frank

[Scrounge]

Darn trees are great and great big trouble. We try to keep ours in check. The cost a bunch of $$ to remove and more in care, up keep and damage if they get too big. If too close to house I would cut them when I was cutting them. This reminds me we need to trim that now large silver maple. 5" branches will turn into 10" in a few years and then into 15" where its at would mean deck and siding damage.

Fruit for though in the woods we found a Maple 26-28 diameter. Exploded, there were 7' to 9' chunks trees was basically quartered. Little bit of ant damage in center, must have been holding water. Trunk was off the ground some 8' to 9' feet next section was what exploded. Tops was laying down hill must have been a 50' to 60' tree. Hit by lighting some time last spring as no leaves and all of the wood was bleach out. Just think about that hitting you or your house.

Tree was on a south facing hill about 10 feet for the top and in the woods. No sap from that one. Timber was gone long ago as darn ants in very center.

Got a silver maple in my yard. Thought it was great when we bought the house closing on 24 years ago. Then I found out silver maple is not really a hard wood. And it rots really fast. And the trees fall apart rather quickly when it gets windy. I'm trying figure out how to take it, and all it's babies (and a couple of Mulberry trees) out of my yard. SWMBO says I'm not allowed up on a ladder, and I may not buy a bigger chainsaw. (All I have is a 14" electric) Since I lost my life insurance early this month, I guess I can understand why. But they still need to come down, Dang it!

[Winger Ed.]

. SWMBO says I'm not allowed up on a ladder, and I may not buy a bigger chainsaw.

I never would pay someone to do anything I could possibly do myself..... until the last couple years.
Now, cutting down big trees or working off a ladder is on the top of the short list of what I hire out.

The last major tree cutting project I had, I traded off my bad boy Stihl to the crew as partial payment.
Being this late in the game, I'd encourage you to consider that too.

[georgerkahn]

We had a bit of a thunderstorm here today, as I was going home to feed the dog and the snake catchers, aka cats, I saw quite a few trees down.

Went to pull in the driveway and oops, there is an eight inch thick elm limb in the way, still attached about twenty feet up. The top half of my big locust came down and got the two windows. Another locust that was dead halfway up lost the deadwood.

When I went to get a chainsaw, I realized the barn was a lot lighter inside than it should be, half the north side roof is gone. But wait, it gets even better...

Since the saws got rained on, the little one didn't want to start, but the old used and abused 455 Husky started right up. Of course the grease gun for the tip didn't work, and the chain acted dull so I just cleared the driveway and called it a day.

New grease gun and files are in the truck for tomorrow.

Robert

Oh and the electricity is out too.

R

I remember Dan Akylroid's comment to Bill Murray in Stripes: "Well, at least you still have your health!" In my neck of the woods such wind damage is indeed rare; our fears have ice storm and sub-freezing temps at the list's head. My heart does go out to you -- BE SAFE! And, best wishes re your clean-up.
You may wish to take lots of photos, too. Not knowing what you may or may not have for insurance -- some of your losses may be factored come Fed tax prep time -- *BUT* one needs LOTS of proof of loss -- 'specially if you do not hire repairs out and have "official" receipts. Those photos might then be worth having!
geo

[Plate plinker]

Got a silver maple in my yard. Thought it was great when we bought the house closing on 24 years ago. Then I found out silver maple is not really a hard wood. And it rots really fast. And the trees fall apart rather quickly when it gets windy. I'm trying figure out how to take it, and all it's babies (and a couple of Mulberry trees) out of my yard. SWMBO says I'm not allowed up on a ladder, and I may not buy a bigger chainsaw. (All I have is a 14" electric) Since I lost my life insurance early this month, I guess I can understand why. But they still need to come down, Dang it!

I would rent a 60’ off road man lift and have at it. If you can get access to one of those machines. And if you have room to maneuver around the offending trees.

[frkelly74]

I was thinking of steel roofing/ siding sheets. Also there are steel shingles available. That would be a reasonable thing to roof with. Lots of houses here are getting that treatment. Personally I would like a standing seam steel roof. That would be a 100 year roof I think ,provided nothing big fell on it. Many people not in the trades have difficulty with terminology, we have to be gentle with them.

[MaryB]

I hired a tree crew to take down the lightning/95mph wind hit locust tree in my yard. Trunk was 4' across at the base! They took the main trunk as payment and cut it into boards, they gave me about 16' of 2' wide boards that are on the rack in the garage still. I am going to make a table top with it for my sisters rec room, she asked if I had any rustic furniture for it and I showed her the boards and she wants them. I have no need so she is getting a table! She is coming down this summer to help build the frame for the top and to glue up the top boards then cut the top to shape(octagon gaming table).

When they used a backhoe to dig out the root ball it went down 7'! It all had to come out, that is where the garage slab ended up.

[quilbilly]

The good news is that black locust makes wonderful firewood after it has dried for a year or two. Burns hot and long.

[fixit]

Only thing better for fence posts is Osage. Don't know what anyone would pay for them, but they take a long time to rot!

[Thundarstick]

Thread from 5/2020, Talk about resurrection!

I'll have to admit that climbing up on stuff is looking less and less appealing myself!

[Kosh75287]

Only thing better for fence posts is Osage. Don't know what anyone would pay for them, but they take a long time to rot!
You'd PROBABLY have to cut your own, which is often as big a chore as getting trees off a roof. The only time I've seen a chainsaw spark without hitting metal, I was cutting up an Osage Orange (aka Bois D'arc) tree. If you enjoy sharpening your chainsaw blades, they're WUNNERFUL trees to cut up!

[Baltimoreed]

Sorry for your troubles. It seems our country can’t get a break. Fires, floods, cold, storms, pandemic, you name it. My wife and I came home from her moms house where we all were hold up after a hurricane blew through. Only a mile in town, when we turned the corner and got closer to the house all we could see was green in the headlights. Our big 3 foot across the stump oak was across the road. Luckily fell away from the house. It had snatched the transformer off the pole for good measure. We were without real power for a while, just running the generator. The state cleaned up my tree though.

[rockrat]

Bois D'Arc will turn a new chain saw chain into a usless dull piece of metal really quickly.

[samari46]

Had a red oak come down during one of the hurricanes. Got most of it cut and burned. Main trunk took a lot longer. Would go out every so often and cut some of it off. It got so hard the chain would smoke (was freshly sharpened) and a sharp axe would bounce off. Would save my old motor oil and soak the wood. Took a long time before it was all gone. Water oaks do not have really big root balls. So are very prone to go down during hurricanes. My neighbor down the road lost 6 during one hurricane. One reason why I had the one that was dying taken down. Frank