Their Dad Wouldn’t Listen To Their Protests When He Wanted To Cut Down Trees Himself, And He Ended Up Creating Some Big Damage

Matthew Gilligan

4 months ago

A few years back, I saw a friend of mine (who had no experience) cut down some trees in his yard and let’s just say IT WASN’T PRETTY.

And it reminded me of this story!

Take a look at what happened and see what you think.

“Nah, we don’t need a professional to fell these trees” – Okay…

“This is the story of how my dad – with my consent but against my advice – accidentally weaponized a tree.

I live in the capital of a Central European country and recently visited my parents at the countryside. They needed me to help to deal with some trees they wanted to fell.

I assumed they wanted to finally make short work of the semi-healthy trees along the driveway that kept branching into the way. But no. They decided that the row of beeches at the south eastern corner of the property had to go.

Here’s the deal.

You should know three things here: 1) those trees are really REALLY tall, like 15 metres (about 50 feet) and rather thin. 2) there is an equally high barn just a few meters behind those trees on the neighbor’s property to the south. It is pretty old but has been renovated time and time again to serve as a storage and party location. 3) in front of the trees are compost containers, a crooked walnut tree and bushes that my mother planted, creating a corridor of only around 7 meters (23 feet) for the trees to land in without breaking anything.

Also important: My sister (also living in a bigger city and not present when these events took place) and I are actually the co-owners of the house and property as my father transferred ownership to us some years ago.

While so far those beeches had survived their fair share of storms, they’d probably become a problem as they kept growing. And since new neighbors on the property bordering on the eastern side are in the process of building a house, they’d be their problem as well. So I agreed that they had to go.

You sure about that, Dad?

However my parents wanted to fell them by themselves, meaning my dad would be the one to operate the chainsaw on them. He worked as a technician before retiring, always did a lot of repair and building work in and around the house.

But he is past 70 has adopted a rather unhealthy lifestyle after leaving the workforce and his eyesight and motor skills, while still perfectly suited for most kinds of technical operations, have deteriorated a bit.

Knowing this, I objected and suggested hiring a professional to do the job and sharing the costs. I argued that any damage – beechwood is pretty heavy – or injury that might occur if things went sideways wouldn’t be covered by insurance and thus come in quite costly.

Also doing this without even as much as notifying the local authorities might be illegal. (Okay, it’s the countrysided. If any regulations of such kind even exist, folks here like to interpret them as “friendly advice” rather than an actual law, but I digress.)

My parents wouldn’t have any of it and even refused to get an estimate from a professional. I did some basic research and found out, that the costs would probably come in at around 500 to 1000 euro (600 to 1200 dollars).

Not a small sum, but the forester or lumberjack who’d take up the work would be responsible for any damage.

They tried to tell them!

No dice, even after trying to bring my points across several times. “Nah, we don’t need a professional. Why should we waste money when we can do it by ourselves?”, they said. “It will be fine”, they said (literally).

And while I usually am able to put them off bad ideas by convincing one of them, this time both were hell bent on going for it. And once that is the case, all hope is basically lost as especially my mother can be the most stubborn as heck. At least I know whom I inherited this trait from.

As property co-owner I technically could have just forbidden my parents to fell those trees on their own.

But they’re my parents, I love them, they’re adults, they live there and keep stuff in order so I refrained from taking this route. So I told them that they should go ahead if they really want to, but I would not help them with this.

My mom asked if I would help them cutting it up and carrying the wood once the trees were laying on the ground (important aspect). I agreed. Also I begged them to wait for my sister to call them the next day at lunchtime, since I messaged her about the situation and she wanted to back me up.

But no. Next morning I was woken up by my mother calling me to help cutting up the first tree which my father had brought down successfully.

So I dutifully crawled out of bed and did my part in this little deforestation project. Tree 2 and 3 (out of 5) also were felled without any incidence.

Here we go…

Then came tree 4. My father apparently had not seen a higher up branch that stretched between the branches of tree 5. So once the chainsaw had fully severed the stem, instead of falling sideways as intended, it got caught up, swirled around its axis and crashed into the walnut tree which started to bend significantly due to the load.

Now they wanted me to help moving the beech by pushing it to “roll” along the edge of one of the walnut tree’s main branches. Besides me knowing that this wasn’t doable (as I said, a 15 meters high tree is a heavy affair) I refused.

“But you said you’d help us once a tree is felled”, they pleaded. I pointed out that I’d only assist once it was laying on the ground and “leaning into the walnut tree” doesn’t quite fit that definition. More pleading, but now it was my time to be stubborn – and rightfully so.

Since there was no way to (or machinery) to pull the beech away, my father decided to cut parts of its lower stem until handling it would be possible.

Multiple laws of physics however intervened after he had cut the second large chunk, shifting the center of mass of the beech so that it suddenly started to tilt when its branches prevented it from sliding downwards as intended.

Then the walnut tree reacted to the lighter load and shift of balance by “springing” back, knocking the beech into the neighbor’s barn like a battering ram.

Uh oh!

The dry wooden wall planks didn’t stand a chance and splintered away as the felled tree forced its way into the building, creating an impressive hole.

My parents now stood there, dumbfounded. My dad slowly scratched his head and tried to realize the situation while my mother slowly started to panic (“oh no, no, no, what do we do now? What if the neighbour calls the police on us?”).

I had watched the spectacle from the balcony and couldn’t decide whether to be shocked or to descend into uncontrollable laughter.

Closer investigation from outside showed that the tree had crushed a chair, a table and also caused a cupboard with party equipment to collapse.

Though my dad had at least reached his goal and freed the beech from the “grasp” of the walnut tree. But there was no way of getting it unstuck from the barn without entering.

A few hours later the neighbor – who knew about my parent’s plans – returned home, which is where this story might have taken a very bitter and costly turn.

But he proved to be a very gracious guy and took the incident (which in the worst case could have made the whole barn collapse) in stride.

He was a nice guy…

He first was negatively amazed by what had transpired but after inspection of the barn he didn’t deem it to be necessary to involve the insurance or officials and said he would repair the damage by himself if my parents agreed to pay for the materials, replacement of the destroyed furniture (thanks, neighbor!) and some beer (probably A LOT of beer) for his time – which they gladly accpeted.

His “bill” isn’t yet in as he has just begun patching up the hole, but it will easily be upwards of 2,000 euros (roughly 2,400 dollars), plus the beer of course, still making a professional tree removal look like a REALLY good deal.

My father offered him to assist with the repairs. The neighbour thought about it for the fraction of a second and then politely declined. I wonder why.

PS: Tree 5 is still standing.”

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