Neighbor's Oak Down

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Soundchasm

Soundchasm

Minister of Fire
Sep 27, 2011
1,305
Dayton, OH
www.soundchasm.com
Don't know about your location, but the winds were pretty good here yesterday. We kept power, but lost cable and internet. A quick walk up the block revealed what I consider to be a fairly compelling and likely reason. I was able to conclude my investigation ahead of schedule and under budget.

Checking back on it reveals more punk than you'd want and a bunch of hollow limbs. And a nod to Murphy and his law. The property owner JUST had 2-3 similar trees taken out. Even more bizarre, he left for CA the day before... Ugh.

That broken stump is at least seven feet tall.

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I'm kind of torn on this one. I DO like oak, but the owner is out of town.

The 90% of my brain devoted to rationalizing my behavior says the owner across the street might like it off his yard... ;)
 
That looks like a lot of good firewood to me! Not a fun one to start cutting up until the stress is off the branches and the stump is done rotating. I would say the authority is the municipality that maintains the road as far as taking the wood, it is on their ROW.
 
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I would be out there cutting it up and loading it into my pickup, fast as I could. I seriously doubt that the former owner has any legal ownership of the wood in fact, he probably would be delighted to see that tree gone!
 
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They've got it cleaned up and off the road, of course, but it's all still there. The yard it fell into is a gigantic house/six acres that's unoccupied. It has owners (looked them up), but they don't live there (the house has had a bizarre chain of ownership and a Sheriff's sale).

It'd be nice to have some bullet proof permission. It wouldn't really be a fun scrounge since it's right on a busy road. And the yard is too soft to drive on. But common sense would indicate everybody would like it gone.

Still, it looks like a LOT of punk in the limbs. Half are hollow. The trunk is hard to predict, but I just worked an oak trunk that looked fine but was too far gone to be worth it. What a shame.

Quite uncharacteristically, I'm in pretty good shape. I'm sitting on around six cords of BL, oak and honey locust. That's two years. And there's a cord of live cut black cheery and beech about 100 yards out my back door I'm sure a neighbor will give me. And another neighbor offered me less than a cord of live cut honey locust as he has decided to not get a wood stove.

If I was low, I'd be figuring something out.
 
Here the town road division would clear the road but come back later when it wouldn't require overtime and clean up anything on the right of way. It would all get chipped.
Technically it belonged to the property owner before it fell. The parts that are now on the right of way or could impact public safety do not. Them's the rules here anyway.
When they get big and old like that there's all manner of quality and not so of wood in it.
With an absentee owner who likely doesn't give a rat5 a55 I'd be cutting some too.
 
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Cut it up ASAP, and get it out of sight. It's in the counties right of way anyway.
 
Correct, once it falls, what's over his property line is not his. Just make sure you know where the line is. Here it's typically 30' off center line of roadway.
 
Its cut up on the side of the road and you haven't got any? Take the easy pickings while you can, you're doing everyone a favor, if the owners lived there and burned wood it would be another story but dont let it rot anymore than it has.
 
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