Quick Silver
Sunday, October 30th, 2022 11:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioSo... the good news is that I got 10.3K views on one of the six TikToks I did yesterday, working on the fallen Mulberry... after stringing up the rope and pulleys to that vertical limb, and venturing to cut the main trunk.
The bad news is... it was negative popularity!
Normally, on a good day, I'll get 100 to 200 views. Occasionally, I've gotten close to a thousand... and there have been a few that went into the multiple K range, but not many.
My video right after I'd gotten the vertical limb strung up with my 300 feet of rope, and four pulleys crossed 10K because everybody was thinking the same thing...
This idiot doesn't know what he's doing, and this will lead to an epic fail!
--<>--
One comment was, "Tell me this is a joke!"
Other's said I'd anchored too low to the ground, or predicted that the rope would snap, or the pulleys would break.
Of course there were many who said I wasted my time and/or money on such a sketch plan, and should call a professional.
But the ones who were right, simply warned that polyrope has an incredible stretch capacity!
Of course, none of those predictions or warnings came until many hours after the fact, so... they weren't helpful in the moment!
--<>--
So, in my defense, I got it mostly right!..
My estimation that I'd need 300 feet of rope was spot on! That was enough to go back and forth across the yard between the vertical limb and four anchor trees, with length to spare.
I correctly judged the tensile strength of the rope... it did not snap.
I correctly judged the load weight of the pulleys... they held just fine.
And the knots that I tied, to anchor the rope, and the pulleys, all held beutifully!
The system was sound (and remains sound tonight)... but I WAS completely blind to the variable of STRETCH!
--<>--
We'll take a moment to look at the options I rejected, for the problem of the thousand pound vertical limb, leaning over the property line...
I could've gone up on an extension ladder to cut sub-limbs off, one at a time. That was rejected, because such a ladder was prohibitively expensive, but...
Even if I had one, that's a dangerous option, because I could've fallen off the ladder... the ladder could've fallen... and heavy limbs swing and fall unpredictably, and have tons of potential energy when they're so high off the ground.
I could've bought lineman's spike boots... or screw-in climber footings... for around $50.00 and just climbed the limb itself... with my chain saw... to cut things off and let them drop.
But that would've been equally dangerous.
--<>--
I went with the rope and pulleys, because I felt it was my best hope for stabilizing the vertical limb, as I isolated it from the horizontal trunk... which itself kinda hovered several inches off the ground for most of it's length.
The idea was that the rope... anchoring it to four other trees... with the pulleys distributing the weight evenly between them... would prevent it from shifting wildly.
I did hope that the system would hold it steady, until the trunk segment it was attached to, dropped the four or so inches to terra firma.
And I did hope that... if that step went well, I'd be able to rotate the limb, so that it fell into my yard, and not the neighbor's yard.
--<>--
What happened instead was... as I cut deeper through the main trunk, I finally began to hear snapping and popping from the cut location.
I took a step back to allow things to shift... and took note of the fact that the rope lines were gradually getting more and more taught (They'd been a bit droopy before the cut)!
The fall of the vertical limb played out in super-slow motion... taking a good FIFTEEN MINUTES to rotate down into the neighbor's yard!
Bear in mind, I had not cut all the way through the trunk!
I'd hacked out a wide gap, and compromised the trunk, but the two halves were still connected.
In the first five minutes, both halves slowly settled to the ground... bending ever so gently at the connection point... which looked good!
The vertical limb was still at it's normal angle, and the ropes, while taught, were holding fine.
--<>--
In the second five minutes, there was a lot of snapping and popping, but the movement was almost imperceptible... like watching the hour hand move on a clock!
I fully expected it to settle to the ground and stabilize.
But a dorsal crack formed along the trunk, at the lower corner of the gap I'd hacked out, and that crack began checking along down the trunk, in the direction of the vertical limb!
It was imperceptible at first... but this dorsal checking gave the limb permission to start leaning back... just a few degrees!
But all it took was those few degrees for gravity to get the advantage... welcoming that limb, with open arms!.. down into the neighbor's back yard!
But my poly rope system... offered impressive resistance... so that over the final five minutes, as the rope sloooowly stretched... the system eased the vertical limb down, like a mother, ever so gently, lowering her sleeping infant into it's cradle for a nap!
--<>--
Most amazingly... because it was the dorsal checking, and not the cut itself, which had started the limb into it's backward fall... and because the rope system was causing it to fall so absurdly slowly...
The checking stopped, and the limb never tore away from the main trunk!
INSTEAD... the ENTIRE TRUNK rotated some sixty degrees... turning in whole, as the limb settled down near the grass!
I was AMAZED!.. because that hunk of trunk, from the limb over to the stump looked to be so heavy, not even Hercules could've rolled it like that!.. slightly up hill, and even lifting the stump end a bit off the ground!
--<>--
I imagine that, if I'd not hooked up the ropes... and done that same cut... the vertical limb would've violently ripped away from the trunk, falling with a great crash, as the stump half of the trunk jumped and rolled over my legs... if I didn't leap away fast enough... pinning me down, by broken shins!
We'll never know, for sure.
But I never would've imagined that dorsal checking... or that the vertical limb had enough energy to spin that whole base trunk into motion!
I hooked up the rope system... BECAUSE... I knew that I could NOT predict how things would shift without it!
------------{=0=}------------
My rope and pulley system did it's job, insofar as it held, and... those pulleys DID distribute the weight evenly to all four anchor trees... tasking each of them with exactly a quarter of the load.
People said I anchored too low, but I anchored near the bases of the four trees because that's where they're the strongest, and where the leverage on them is near zero!
A different type of rope, or chain, might've held that limb vertical, but... it also would've been too expensive for me to afford... at three hundred feet!
It was polyrope or nothing!.. and polyrope's amazing stretch factor DID put time in a bottle for me, like I was Quick Silver, dealing with the X-Mansion explosion in super slow motion!
--<>--
That limb wasn't done settling before I was in the neighbor's back yard, furiously lopping off sub-limb, after sub-limb to reduce the weight, and stop the extremeties from entangling with the fences of two more neighbors!
Throwing all those sub-limbs over into my yard, I still had time to bust out a six foot step ladder and... standing comfortably on the third rung... cut off the (formerly) highest sublimb... now only a few feet off the ground.
--<>--
No property was damaged, and nobody was injured (it was just me out there anyway, but I didn't get injured) and the only regrettable consequence was that it DID snap the telephone line going to the back of my neighbor's house!
But I checked with them... confessing what had gone down... and they said their WIFI was still working fine, as was their data service.
It was an old legacy telephone land line feed that hasn't been in use over there for over a decade!
Their attitude this whole time, since the tree fell, has been to let me just deal with it myself and ignore the whole problem like it doesn't exist. So, the guy I spoke to looked rather RELIEVED that I wasn't asking him for any help!
I was just telling him some useless line had gone down.
Kinda did them a favor... as it was too high up to disconnect themselves, and would've been a pain to call and have that done!
--<>--
At any rate, by the time the sun was setting, Saturday night, I'd lopped off enough weight from the formerly vertical limb... the sub-limbs that had been out of my reach until now... that the rope & pulley system was under no serious stress.
Thirty hours later, it's still holding, and has a bit more play than at the peak stress of the fall.
In the end, I'll have GAINED about thirty feet of rope!
------------{=0=}------------
This is far from the end of the story, with this stupid fallen tree!.. but this IS the end of the dangerous part!
I can pear down the remains of the formerly vertical limb next week... probably to such an extent that the rope system actually CAN yank the limb stump back over to my side!
And I'll have a HORRIBLY disorganized pile of limbs and branches to sort through after that.
Not to mention the main trunk!
But... from here on out, it's gonna be mostly boring work.
--<>--
People have been getting their digs in, today, about how I didn't know what I was doing. But now that the danger element is gone... it'll go back down to 90 or 100 views... and then the snow will fall...
And it won't really get resolved until next April or May, when I have rando's from Facebook Marketplace taking away all the wood for free, as I rake up the sticks from the grass, and finally mow the lawn again.
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
The bad news is... it was negative popularity!
Normally, on a good day, I'll get 100 to 200 views. Occasionally, I've gotten close to a thousand... and there have been a few that went into the multiple K range, but not many.
My video right after I'd gotten the vertical limb strung up with my 300 feet of rope, and four pulleys crossed 10K because everybody was thinking the same thing...
This idiot doesn't know what he's doing, and this will lead to an epic fail!
One comment was, "Tell me this is a joke!"
Other's said I'd anchored too low to the ground, or predicted that the rope would snap, or the pulleys would break.
Of course there were many who said I wasted my time and/or money on such a sketch plan, and should call a professional.
But the ones who were right, simply warned that polyrope has an incredible stretch capacity!
Of course, none of those predictions or warnings came until many hours after the fact, so... they weren't helpful in the moment!
So, in my defense, I got it mostly right!..
My estimation that I'd need 300 feet of rope was spot on! That was enough to go back and forth across the yard between the vertical limb and four anchor trees, with length to spare.
I correctly judged the tensile strength of the rope... it did not snap.
I correctly judged the load weight of the pulleys... they held just fine.
And the knots that I tied, to anchor the rope, and the pulleys, all held beutifully!
The system was sound (and remains sound tonight)... but I WAS completely blind to the variable of STRETCH!
We'll take a moment to look at the options I rejected, for the problem of the thousand pound vertical limb, leaning over the property line...
I could've gone up on an extension ladder to cut sub-limbs off, one at a time. That was rejected, because such a ladder was prohibitively expensive, but...
Even if I had one, that's a dangerous option, because I could've fallen off the ladder... the ladder could've fallen... and heavy limbs swing and fall unpredictably, and have tons of potential energy when they're so high off the ground.
I could've bought lineman's spike boots... or screw-in climber footings... for around $50.00 and just climbed the limb itself... with my chain saw... to cut things off and let them drop.
But that would've been equally dangerous.
I went with the rope and pulleys, because I felt it was my best hope for stabilizing the vertical limb, as I isolated it from the horizontal trunk... which itself kinda hovered several inches off the ground for most of it's length.
The idea was that the rope... anchoring it to four other trees... with the pulleys distributing the weight evenly between them... would prevent it from shifting wildly.
I did hope that the system would hold it steady, until the trunk segment it was attached to, dropped the four or so inches to terra firma.
And I did hope that... if that step went well, I'd be able to rotate the limb, so that it fell into my yard, and not the neighbor's yard.
What happened instead was... as I cut deeper through the main trunk, I finally began to hear snapping and popping from the cut location.
I took a step back to allow things to shift... and took note of the fact that the rope lines were gradually getting more and more taught (They'd been a bit droopy before the cut)!
The fall of the vertical limb played out in super-slow motion... taking a good FIFTEEN MINUTES to rotate down into the neighbor's yard!
Bear in mind, I had not cut all the way through the trunk!
I'd hacked out a wide gap, and compromised the trunk, but the two halves were still connected.
In the first five minutes, both halves slowly settled to the ground... bending ever so gently at the connection point... which looked good!
The vertical limb was still at it's normal angle, and the ropes, while taught, were holding fine.
In the second five minutes, there was a lot of snapping and popping, but the movement was almost imperceptible... like watching the hour hand move on a clock!
I fully expected it to settle to the ground and stabilize.
But a dorsal crack formed along the trunk, at the lower corner of the gap I'd hacked out, and that crack began checking along down the trunk, in the direction of the vertical limb!
It was imperceptible at first... but this dorsal checking gave the limb permission to start leaning back... just a few degrees!
But all it took was those few degrees for gravity to get the advantage... welcoming that limb, with open arms!.. down into the neighbor's back yard!
But my poly rope system... offered impressive resistance... so that over the final five minutes, as the rope sloooowly stretched... the system eased the vertical limb down, like a mother, ever so gently, lowering her sleeping infant into it's cradle for a nap!
Most amazingly... because it was the dorsal checking, and not the cut itself, which had started the limb into it's backward fall... and because the rope system was causing it to fall so absurdly slowly...
The checking stopped, and the limb never tore away from the main trunk!
INSTEAD... the ENTIRE TRUNK rotated some sixty degrees... turning in whole, as the limb settled down near the grass!
I was AMAZED!.. because that hunk of trunk, from the limb over to the stump looked to be so heavy, not even Hercules could've rolled it like that!.. slightly up hill, and even lifting the stump end a bit off the ground!
I imagine that, if I'd not hooked up the ropes... and done that same cut... the vertical limb would've violently ripped away from the trunk, falling with a great crash, as the stump half of the trunk jumped and rolled over my legs... if I didn't leap away fast enough... pinning me down, by broken shins!
We'll never know, for sure.
But I never would've imagined that dorsal checking... or that the vertical limb had enough energy to spin that whole base trunk into motion!
I hooked up the rope system... BECAUSE... I knew that I could NOT predict how things would shift without it!
My rope and pulley system did it's job, insofar as it held, and... those pulleys DID distribute the weight evenly to all four anchor trees... tasking each of them with exactly a quarter of the load.
People said I anchored too low, but I anchored near the bases of the four trees because that's where they're the strongest, and where the leverage on them is near zero!
A different type of rope, or chain, might've held that limb vertical, but... it also would've been too expensive for me to afford... at three hundred feet!
It was polyrope or nothing!.. and polyrope's amazing stretch factor DID put time in a bottle for me, like I was Quick Silver, dealing with the X-Mansion explosion in super slow motion!
That limb wasn't done settling before I was in the neighbor's back yard, furiously lopping off sub-limb, after sub-limb to reduce the weight, and stop the extremeties from entangling with the fences of two more neighbors!
Throwing all those sub-limbs over into my yard, I still had time to bust out a six foot step ladder and... standing comfortably on the third rung... cut off the (formerly) highest sublimb... now only a few feet off the ground.
No property was damaged, and nobody was injured (it was just me out there anyway, but I didn't get injured) and the only regrettable consequence was that it DID snap the telephone line going to the back of my neighbor's house!
But I checked with them... confessing what had gone down... and they said their WIFI was still working fine, as was their data service.
It was an old legacy telephone land line feed that hasn't been in use over there for over a decade!
Their attitude this whole time, since the tree fell, has been to let me just deal with it myself and ignore the whole problem like it doesn't exist. So, the guy I spoke to looked rather RELIEVED that I wasn't asking him for any help!
I was just telling him some useless line had gone down.
Kinda did them a favor... as it was too high up to disconnect themselves, and would've been a pain to call and have that done!
At any rate, by the time the sun was setting, Saturday night, I'd lopped off enough weight from the formerly vertical limb... the sub-limbs that had been out of my reach until now... that the rope & pulley system was under no serious stress.
Thirty hours later, it's still holding, and has a bit more play than at the peak stress of the fall.
In the end, I'll have GAINED about thirty feet of rope!
This is far from the end of the story, with this stupid fallen tree!.. but this IS the end of the dangerous part!
I can pear down the remains of the formerly vertical limb next week... probably to such an extent that the rope system actually CAN yank the limb stump back over to my side!
And I'll have a HORRIBLY disorganized pile of limbs and branches to sort through after that.
Not to mention the main trunk!
But... from here on out, it's gonna be mostly boring work.
People have been getting their digs in, today, about how I didn't know what I was doing. But now that the danger element is gone... it'll go back down to 90 or 100 views... and then the snow will fall...
And it won't really get resolved until next April or May, when I have rando's from Facebook Marketplace taking away all the wood for free, as I rake up the sticks from the grass, and finally mow the lawn again.
°¦}
