In 2015 Charlie and Becks Breese brought their two elders kids out to the barn with Breezy’s Father. Charlie is always up for a project; and so the “helipad” was built in a weekend. We had cut most of an old pine tree down behind the barn and the project was to build a terrace suspended from it by cables. Original post HERE.

When bits of wood started to fall from the underside this year and the cables had eaten their way into the truck of the old pine we decided it was time for it to come down. The risk being that a winter storm or substantial snowfall would bring it down anyway.

The problem was how to bring it all down safely without personal injury or breaking a flower.

As the terrace was held up on wires the first job was to make it some legs so that when the tension was off the thing stayed up. That done, next was to take some of the boards away to alleviate some of the weight before removing the cables. I thought that was the worst bit until we got to chopping down the tree itself. The trunk was half rotten and leaning towards the round flower bed, and the bar of the chainsaw was only 40 cm. The girth of the tree was about a metre. Having said that the top half came down quite easily with the assistance of a pull on a rope. Then an arduous chopping up session to get it into bits we could move to then burn it. Exactly the same with the bottom half.

The stump was then cut vertically across the centre so there was an eight pointed star in the top. A fire rag (we have cotton rags in jars soaked in used solvent and oil) was lit in the centre and left to burn out for 3-4 days.

The good timber from the terrace was stacked for future projects and the rotten stuff was burnt.