Karoompf - That is exactly how it sounded!!

I have had a physical weekend with one very dirty job (no need for details here) and little tree felling.This latter work was necessary as we had a silver birch tree, circa 30-35ft, that had obviously died and we feared it would fall of its own accord.

Last year we saw that the tree was suffering, but this year there were no signs of green at all. Additionally we have had a couple of smaller branches fall. These appeared to have been damamged by birds pecking for insects in the wood.

So, with our recent bad weather, our fears increased and I decided to act. With a mix of Scouting skills reinforced by learnings from James May's recent TV programmes to remind men of the skills they used to know and should still embrace - they felled a Christmas tree in one episode - I embarked on the work.

Now I didn't have any explosive cord as used by James May so it was more traditional lumberjacking for me; cut out a wedge to direct the fall (fortunately it was leaning the right way to start!) and then cut in from the back. The weapons of choice were a bow saw and a hatchet. I do have a small chain saw, but it is on a pole connected to a motor on a back pack. I decided that I would not be nimble enough, should I need to be, if I was using/wearing this.

I also threw a rope over some upper branches to help me initiate the fall and direct it a little more.

So after cutting out a nice wedge and cutting most of the way through, I found myself pulling hard on the rope to create a sway in the tree, trying to break the last wood. I had undertaken this in small steps and realised that there was no chance yet that the trunk would have fallen by itself for a some time yet.

Eventually a heard a crack and the tree slowly fell. The sound it made as it hit the lawn was "karoompf" as it crumble and collapse into a broken, almost one-dimensional version of a tree. It just shows how dead the tree was!! There were a couple of digs in the lawn, but most of the limbs just broke off.

It looked like I now had a flat-packed tree! All done safely.

I did fire up the chain saw to cut the tree into smaller pieces so that I could move and stack it at the back of the garden. I was grateful for this as, else it would taken me hours to cut by hand, not to mention the blisters I would have collected.

So job done and a new onomatopoeic word for my vocabulary.