Insight almost ate it today......at home!

[BumblingB]

While doing a bit of prep work for my upcoming garage I almost killed my Insight today. I needed to remove a tree so had been digging a hole hole around the base in hopes of pushing it over with my tractor like I've done before. It didn't want to move and I had already dug about 6 feet down so I finally gave my father the go ahead to take it down.

Earlier in the day he said I should move the Insight, I told between the 2 of us we have close to 100 years experience in taking trees down and I trusted him with the chainsaw. I hopped on the tractor and applied pressure to the tree so it would fall in the right direct. Also the wind was in our favor too (AWAY from the car and house). A few minutes later and my dad stops and says, "Come look at this, I think I screwed up." So I put the tractor in "crawl" and hop off. Sure enough he made the cut wrong and now the tree was leaning in the wrong direction! I was so into making sure the tree wouldn't fall in the wrong direction I forgot about the car so I made a cut I thought could maybe repair what he had done. I made him step back a few feet and told him I would be using my catlike reflexs to sure nothing happened to me if the tree feel in the wrong direction. Well, Murphy's Law kicked in and the tree came down. We were VERY lucky! No injuries, a higher power was looking out for me. It also missed a power line by about 2 feet.

A couple of light scratches on the hood


My tractor wasn't so lucky, it suffered a bent fender but now I can get on and off easier - they should of made it that angle from the factory

[Spule 4]

VERY lucky, and better the tractor than you or your friend. A friend had two trees fall during a storm in his backyard here in Nashville, both landed on either side of his two cars.

[GasSavers_Jack]

Just goes to show how dangerous cutting down trees is. Glad everything turned out mostly alright.

[philmcneal]

ya if the wind was nasty... who knows what would have happened.... good to hear you all are all right! That's what you get for messing around with mother nature

[BumblingB]

Sad thing about it was just how much the wind was in my favor. I told my dad he is no longer doing the cuts when we down a tree. The only reason the tree is still there was I took down minimal trees when I first cleared my lot. Now I found out I need to bring 2 down. The 41 year old pine that landed on the tractor and a 10-12 year old Live Oak that will come down next weekend. Everything else that will be built on the property will be built around the trees. The garage was the exception due to its sheer size - not quite my "dream garage" but close to it.