So if you recall in a prior post, we had a large tree fall just a day or two after Hurricane Irma blew through north Georgia. It was a very large, double-trunk Oak, which had rot conditions near the base where the trunks merged. That fall broached our channel fencing, which we use to move the animals up to different grazing areas. We patched a temporary fix to allow the animals in the area, but we knew that we’d have to begin the long cut-up job soon. As well, the remaining trunk, which looked suspect, would have to be addressed. Mother Nature, being how she is sometimes, assisted us with that second part.
In early December, Georgia got hit with a 7″ snowfall in a single day, and it was a wet heavy, packing snow. At 6:40 a.m. we were awoken to what sounded like hundreds of firecrackers going off, which I recognized instantly was the Oak’s fibers breaking under the weight of the snow. Seconds later, an unmistakable “whoomp” of another 80′ Oak hitting the ground, almost directly on top of the first trunk. So the moral to the story is that while we saved hundreds of dollars in not having to have a tree contractor take it down, it is simply money that will go toward replacing and repairing fencing, which seems to be a full-time occupation when you own a farm.