A little cedar porn....

I had a nice cedar that died on the tree line at my backyard. Finally brought it down today. I'm glad that I don't have to cut these up everyday. Kind of felt bad cutting it up for firewood, instead of milling it for something.


Lots of limbs.


17 inches across. I'm gonna get my "big" saw out and cut that stump down as low as possible.




Made for a nice little stack of wood. I have put less work into a lot bigger, better firewood trees, but this will be a nice addition to some otherwise normal burns. I didn't leave anything smaller than about 3 inches. I got that from my dad, "Don't leave anything bigger than your wrists." Plus cedar is so nice, I hate to waste any of it.


I think that instead of burning of these limbs, I am going to wait until spring and rent a chipper and use them for mulch. I have another big dead cedar to cut up, so it should justify renting the chipper. Nothing goes to waste!

And it smells so nice too! I had an aunt that used to put cedar chips in an old stocking and hang it in her closet.

BigTall .. . I hear ya. I hate to cut down live cedars, but dead ones are fantastic for kindling . . . and they smell so nice when processing them!

Your cedars are so so much different looking than our western red cedars. Our limbs are all long low hanging droopy ones where your seem to rise up like a fruit tree. Interesting.

I like the color in there.

Nice job, did you have to use any wedges?

Zap

No wedges. It was leaning in the right direction but I still roped it before I cut. I usually always do this and use a come along to make sure they go where I want them, but this one was so small that I just used the rope to pull it clear of tangling with all the branches on the trees around it.

Highbeam- They do get a lot of low branches, not like the westerns do, but this particular one was right on the edge of the backyard so the lower branches had been trimmed off over the years.

mmmm, big cedars, mostly gone here.


recall too well chopping cedar down with an axe and hauling them out of the woods on our shoulders to make a fence.
Back when you could soak the ends in preservative.

Chopping down was fun.
Hauling out - not so much.