Taking out a dying Ash tree

It has been over two years since I have cut firewood. Considering that I heated with wood for 38 winters, that feels amazingly long to go without cutting wood.

A friend of mine needed a tall, skinny, sickly White Ash tree taken down without hitting his house. I set up my extension ladder, tied a rope around the tree about 28 feet up, attached two long ropes, tied one off at nearly a right angle to exclude going toward the house, attached the other rope to the bumper of the pickup truck, and notched the tree. Then I had my friend drive the truck to tension the rope while I back cut the notch. It fell within a foot or two of where we intended only smashing a wild cherry tree we had not intended to take out. The wood was not at all sappy, ready to burn this coming winter. My friend said that moonshiners liked ash because it burns hot and produces little smoke. It certainly lives up to its name by producing plenty of ash, too.

The base of the tree had sawdust from ash borers. About midway up the tree, branches were still producing leaves, but at the top everything was dead.

Ever thankful for God's protective hand, we successfully laid it down and cut it up. He remarked that he had a lot of work to split it and stack it. Ash is very straight grained and easy to split, however. Baseball bat makers are chagrinned by the demise of their wood supply. "Ash is the most popular wood used to make baseball bats." This particular trunk will make good firewood but was already too compromised to make bats.