UPDATE:
Well, I guess things were LESS than OK after the storm blew through - but I didn’t notice!
Beau got home yesterday afternoon, and then later went to do barn chores. When he came back, he told me that two, OLD, HUGE trees had fallen - AWAY from the barn, thank goodness! I was down in the barn three times yesterday and never noticed, LOL! They did hit the pasture fence, but Ithaca wasn’t hurt - bet he ran like h#ll when it happened, LOL!
So, more firewood to sell, I guess. It looks like there are two train cars sitting in that small pasture yard. Those trees were huge! (But old, and hollow and Nature takes care of things like that).
Now You will not have to watch Beau risk his life, having decided to become an amature arborist, draped in ropes clambering around the top of a dangerous tree with a running chain saw lopping off limbs in order to save an old barn! (Bet he could do it too!...But....)
If Oak, Opportunity! Perhaps Investigate setting aside a rick of mushroom innoculated logs somewhere shady... venison and mushrooms a great combo! (I bought 5 lbs of Red Lake reservation Wild Rice
Anyway, that said, established trees are friends you count on, and unless they threaten your buildings or shade your garden, you are usually sorry to lose them! (I am.)
I’m so glad the trees didn’t fall towards the barn! If I could buy your firewood, I would. We recently told one of the tree guys that if he wants to avoid a dumping fee, we would take some of the trees he takes down and cut them and season ourselves. We do have some decent trees that have fallen across the creek, but I have no way of hauling them back here. No bridge (yet).
You are reminding me that we have an oak tree with a big branch over the road on the west side of our property, and said branch has not leafed out anywhere, so apparently it’s died. Most of the tree still seems ok at this point. My Dad used to have a tool to do small borings into a tree: It’d return a long cylinder of the wood, only 1/2”(?) in diameter. It was sort of like ice sampling from the artic or Antarctic, but small diameter. Then he had stuff to fill the hole and prevent disease or insect infection / attack. I was hoping we’d run across it after he passed away, but, we never did. It’d come in handy now, to tell me if the center of the tree is ok. From the outside it looks fine, unlike an even bigger oak on the east end of our property, but if (when!) that one goes down, there’s nothing nearby but smaller trees to get whacked.
Anyway, wifey is back (went to Arkansas* for a friend’s son’s graduation) so I need to get her out there to watch for traffic while I deal with this branch. I also have a couple nice big & bright traffic “cones” I can set up, plus nicely bright flashing red LED’s, to warn traffic approaching. The best bet looks to be to try to get a rope on the and see if it will break off. I have no way to get THAT high with a saw, even my Dad’s old 3-section pole saw. Plus, it’d take over an hour of cutting with that if I could reach that high! The biggest problem is that if the branch comes down, we’ll be shutting down the road until I can get the pieces cut small enough to be movable, off the the road.
I was thinking “this week”, for this project, but, after about noon tomorrow it looks like we’ll be rainy several days, IF the NWS forecast holds up. So far this spring, every high percentage forecast of “days of lots of rain” has been a bust.
I guess I could ask the State (Transportation Dept.) if they’ll take the branch down, but those guys sometimes cause more problems than they correct.
*Incidentally, for anyone who might have reason to travel from far eastern SEMO (say, Cape Girardeau area), Southern Illinois (say, Carbondale area), or Western KY (say, Paducah area), or routes passing through, to around Little Rock, Arkansas, the I-57 extension NW from Little Rock, AR, to Sikeston, MO, is coming along. Some of it is still US 67, but, even so, it cuts a little time and distance off the old route, taking I-55 to West Memphis, and then heading on I-40 to Little Rock. My wife and daughter took the I-57 route on her trip this weekend, and said it was fine, with less truck traffic than I-55. I don’t know if this full connection will be complete while I’m still driving, but, maybe it’ll be close. :-)
Wifey said there was a fair amount of construction on US 67, which may become I-57 in more parts?