Cutting down a dead Tree - Take 2

I already posted about our first tree cutting down experience. James was eager to use the chainsaw again, so on January 7th, he put his plan in motion to cut down the second dead tree in our backyard. This tree was somewhat shapped like a Y. His plan was to cut one limb down at a time. He recruited help from our friend and neighbor, Glenn. He tied a rope to one limb at a time and James' plan was to cut a notch in each limb that would encourage it to fall in a certain direction.

At work on the 1st limb...
Adjusting the ladder...
More on the first limb...
Video of the 1st limb coming down...
Almost perfect!

Adjusting the ladder again...
James climbing up...
Video of the 2nd limb coming down...
This one didn't go as well for us. Even with the notch, the limb wanted to fall the opposite direction than we had planned. Glenn tried to pull it to guide it, but, it wasn't quite enough. Down the gaint limb came on our neighbor's fence with Kate (our neighbor) and her two daughter's watching. Oops!

A shot of the damage to our neigbor's fence...
We will pay to get this fixed. So far, our first estimate came in for $295.00. We're going to get more bids. For a 7 foot section of fence and James doing the work, it doesn't seem like it should be $300 unless the fence cost $20,000 to begin with.

The Y tree without it's upper limbs...


James cut down the main trunk as well and then cut all the limbs into firewood. Glenn and his son Caden helped to stack it all. Caden even got into bamboo stick sword fights with my children and got hit in the chin when one of my daughters threw her stick at her brother. She missed her brother and Caden's lip was the lucky recipient. Sorry Caden. Thanks for all your help Glenn. You da man!