Extreme Wedging

I've been cutting trees in a campground just about every week lately.  Most of the trees have died from a combination of horned oak gall and the drought we had in 2012, and many of the trees are really big.  They require boring and cutting from both sides, plus boring out the center through the open face.  Many of them are on the edge of the woods, and we have been wedging them over into the woods when possible.  This snag was wanting to go into a roadway, and we pushed it the opposite direction.

Wedging bad back-leaners requires a systematic appoach.  This one was started with 1" wedges, then 1 1/2" wedges, then stacked wedges; first a 1" and 1 1/2" combination, then two 1 1/2" wedges stacked.  Next I placed an oak shim on the stump and wedged up with a 1", and finished with a 1" and 1 1/2" stack on the shim. You have to keep the roadway blocked off while you do trees like this, because you are always assuming that the hinge may fail and the tree will go the way gravity wants to take it.  We won all of them today.  I also turned down four trees that need to be taken down by bucket truck or track-hoe.