Details about the tree incident, part one.

So, I get a lot of the tree picked up and placed in the trailer. I was using a home made double axle trailer. Probably 12 foot long and a little over 4 1/2 feet wide. It has 3 foot sides on it too. I would imagine I probably hauled 6 loads of wood back my house. The rest of the bits and pieces ended up in the woods out back on the property. I spent several days gathering up the wood.

After I got my first days wood unloaded at home, I was able to sit and think about the tree. I have a analytical mind. And enjoy reasoning out difficult problems. So I began what turned out to be a long study about this tree situation. But on this night my focus was on what my encounter with God meant, but before I tell you that, I think you should read a little more about the event itself.

I guess I am going to tell you a little about what I was going to tell my friend on that day.

There were no words given to me by God. No thunder and lightning. Nothing special to mark the occasion except that the tree reversed its direction from falling down to lifting up. The action of the tree was quiet. No noise.  (See my earlier post to understand why I am writing about a tree.) The day started out like this: Sunny with blue sky, crisp and chilly. No wind to speak of and about half the fall foliage was already on the ground. The grass was still green and it was wet. So walking out to the field made your feet very wet and you would hear a crunching of some of the leaves under foot. This was a very good Friday for gathering fire wood. When you work hard cutting and lifting tree trunks you naturally like it when the air is cool.I arrived about 10 in the morning.

The tree I was after was situated between two other trees. So as I approached the site I was looking at a cluster of trees. Later I recognized that my tree was in the middle of two other trees and all three taken together looked like they formed a triangle of trees. You can see what the area looks like by going to YOUTUBE.COM and searching for Larry Splain’s tree. I took a video of the site about a year or so later when I was told the homeowner was going to pull the stump and maybe cut down the other trees. I wanted to preserve for myself what it all looked like.

I used my Stihl chainsaw to cripple cut the tree I wanted. I only had one direction available for the tree to be felled. I ran my tractor and trailer up to the tree and parked them just to the right of where I expected the tree to fall. The rig would be parallel the tree after the tree came down. It would make it easy to load the trailer too as I wouldn’t have far to walk with the wood. I then stepped behind the tree and made my relief cut. I cut that tree till there was only 3/4 inch of wood left uncut. This 3/4 inch was to act as a hinge for when the tree fell. I do not cut trees all the way through because when they fall you cannot control where they bounce. The hinge of wood is just enough to blunt any attempt by the tree to bounce uncontrollably.

Problem was, the tree was sitting so perfectly balanced that after the cut, it just stood there. This tree was about 23 inches thick at it’s base and easily 80 foot tall, maybe more. It is a very big tree for here in central Ohio. But I have cut bigger and I knew that I could cut the hinge a little bit more, which I did. Now the hinge is probably 1/2 inch thick. Knowing this I figured I could just push against the tree and get it rocking. Once that tree moved far enough off center I knew from past experience she would come down.

I pushed. Nothing moved. I pushed some more. Still nothing moved. Now I stand 6 feet tall and weigh in around 245. I used to lift weights when I was younger. Been lifting heavy loads all my life. I was shocked to say the least when after an hour’s worth of very hard pushing all I could see move were the littlest of branches and all they were doing is just wiggling. My back, up between my shoulders was really burning. Sweat rolled off my forehead and down the back of my shirt. I got so warm that I threw off my coat. Every few minutes of pushing I would take a break, I would walk over about 3 paces to the one tree opposite of where my tractor stood, place my upper back against the tree and give myself a little back message against the tree trunk.

Looking back at that tree I would get mad at myself and tell myself if I would just push harder it would go down. So after several trips back and forth to my message tree, I thought maybe I could get a rope or chain and fasten it to my tractor and pull the tree over. Problem was that I had neither. Both were at home and I really did not like driving 4 miles home and 4 miles back all the while leaving this tree unattended. It would be just my luck that one of the grandkids of the woman who’s property I was on would be standing there near the tree when the tree came down. No sir, I just couldn’t take the chance.

My wife is a long distance runner and was currently away from home on a fifty mile training run. No chance for me to call her and have her come over to babysit the tree while I run back to the house to get a chain. Also the homeowner was not on site either so I figured getting this tree down was all on me. I even contemplated driving the tractor up between the two other trees and using the bumper to fell the tree. But, there is much danger in doing that. Should the tree fall backwards instead of forwards I would be trapped behind the wheel and between both trees. Besides, the homeowner had an old hammock strung up between the trees and probably 10 miles of rope wrapped around those trunks, I didn’t want to fool with that option anyway.

So back to pushing I went. Madder and madder I got with myself. Why did I keep giving up the pushing of the tree? If I just would try a little harder I know it will move… Maybe I should go ahead and cut through the base… I did grab the piece of wood that came from the cripple cut and jam it into the relief cut, pounded it with a sledge hammer. But it shattered and the tree still stood rock solid.

Finally, in desperation, I thought of that verse in the bible; Whatever you ask for in my name I will do. (Later I found the verse: John 14:14) So I placed my left hand on the trunk of the tree and said: Jesus, I don’t know if your Bible is true or not. . .