After looking at the dead fir in front of my mountain view for eight years, I finally admitted that it wasn't serving as the wildlife tree I had envisioned and that it was, in fact, a blot on the landscape. It should be cut down. Mike said he would do it.

     The tree was enormous at the base and in dense woods. Mike sighted a narrow opening into which he thought he could fell it. He cut a wedge from the trunk, then took his chain saw to the other side and started cutting. The tree came down, not where Mike had intended it to go but into the top of a live oak. There it lay, hung up beyond saving.

      Mike was chagrined, but I just shrugged. "It was really too difficult a job except for a professional," I said, hoping to salve his smarting ego. "I'll call Chuck Dahl. He'll get this tree out of the tree it's in, and while he's at it, I'll have him cut down that dead cedar that's also spoiling my view." 

      When Chuck had come here nine years ago to cut the trees that were in the way of building my house, then milled them for lumber for the house, I discovered what a pleasure it is to watch him work. He moves with efficiency and grace. He knows immediately and accurately what needs to be done. When he got here yesterday, he drove Yellow Truck as close as he could get it to the targeted tree, then attached a pulley to a large fir seventy-five feet from the truck. He pulled a heavy cable from the winch on the truck to that pulley, then half the same distance to the hung-up tree, making a vee of cable. He wrapped the cable around the tree, telling me to stay outside the triangle, explaining the physics of pulleys and cables that made the inside vee dangerous. Then he started the winch. 

Slowly the cable tightened, then tugged gently on the tree. Chuck stopped the cable, made some cuts in the tree with his chain saw, and went back to the winch. Four times he went from his truck to the tree, changing the angle of the pull, sawing off limbs to facilitate a smoother pull, moving with the efficiency and grace I had admired before. As he passed me, he said, "Fun, huh?" I agreed and said something about how well he worked. "It's just engineering," he said, dismissively. Well, that and strength and a deep understanding of trees and a good flow of energy and a laudable attitude towards both his work and the trees he works with.

      When the tree was on the ground, Chuck turned to the dead cedar, which was growing a step down the hill from an open terrace. He made another vee of cable (truck, pulley-on-a-tree, cedar), 

cut partially through the trunk, then returned to the truck and turned on the winch. 

      With a loud crack and a crashing of branches, the tree came down, but not where Chuck had intended and I had expected it to go. It came down into the top of a live oak, and there it lay, hung up, just like the other one, except that it wasn't beyond saving. 

Chuck set out immediately to counter the error.

      I had wanted to write this post to extol the skill, precision of movement, and beauty of labor that make watching Chuck work such a pleasure. The first of that triad is not now nullified just because the tree was in the oaks. Chuck jumped out of the truck and didn't waste a minute with recriminations to himself or curses to the tree or scratching his head trying to figure out what went wrong. "We don't control nature," he said simply, pulling the cable. "That tree just didn't want to go there." He took out a tiny chain saw on the end of a long pole and set to work cutting up the cedar until it, too, was lying on the ground, in sections. "The only thing hurt is my ego," he said cheerily, putting away his tools.

      He didn't want me to tell this story on my blog, but I do because it amplifies the purpose of writing about Chuck in the first place. The cedar in the oaks does not speak badly of his skill, and the smoothness of his motions that translated directly into smoothness of attitude in adversity only increased my admiration. And, in the end, I have two large trees lying on the ground ready for Mike to saw into firewood and cut into kindling.