Things I won't do three times ....CONTINUED 2

The list of things I won’t do three times is a lot longer than it should be. Too many times I have to ask myself, what was I thinking? I have to ask myself why I didn’t learn this lesson the first time around. Here’s another excellent example.

Never under estimate the power of mechanical advantage.

In physics and engineering, mechanical advantage is the factor by which a mechanism multiples the force applied to it. The operative words here are “multiplies the force.”

Several years ago, I was regaling my co-works with stories about the hardships of removing stumps from the yard without the use of power tools. I was also lamenting the fact that I had an over 100 foot pine tree to remove, and wasn’t looking forward to digging out the “fresh” stump. It was during one of these story telling sessions that I was presented with the concept of tipping over a tree. The short version is, when the Pilgrims first got here, they had a lot of trees to remove so they could build their farms. As the story goes, what the Pilgrims would do is put a large rock/boulder in front of the tree. Next they would climb up as high as they could get in the tree and attach a rope. They would hook the rope up to a team of oxen, and the oxen would start pulling. The Pilgrims would dig and hack at the roots on the far side of the tree until the oxen pulled the tree over. The falling tree would pivot on the boulder and the stump would pop out of the ground. Tree down, no stump to pull, sounded good to me. If the Pilgrims could do it, I certainly could too.

So how do I do it? How do I tip over a 100 foot pine tree? I have a length of cable and some chain to substitute for the rope. I have a ladder to get said cable and chain high up in the tree. I have shovels and saws and axes to use for hacking at the roots. But I don’t have any oxen. I’m telling my brother of this great plan to tip over the tree and my one remaining roadblock. It was he that provided the answer for replacing the oxen. His suggestion was to use a couple of “Come Alongs”. A Come Along is a hand winch. It’s a lever, and a pulley, and a ratchet with a length of cable. A few basic tools combined into one simple machine with which I could move the world. Or so I thought.

I’m cheap. I didn’t want to buy machines I would only use once. So I borrowed the Come Alongs from my brother. He has only one rule regarding loaning tools. He will loan you anything he has with one provision, if you break it you buy him a new one. Don’t fix the broken one, get him a new one.

So at the appointed hour, of the appointed day, on the appointed weekend, I put my plan into action. I attached the Come Alongs to the base of a sturdy anchor tree. Two Come Alongs should do the job. And these Come Alongs are beefy. Big, steel mechanisms with big steel cable rated to pull over 5 tons each. (Arrrrrrrr, manly tools) And I attach the cable from the Come Alongs as high up in the tree as I can reach with my ladder. I pull the slack up out of the cable, put some tension on the tree and start going to work on the roots, just like the Pilgrims. I work on the roots for hours. Periodically, I put more tension on the tree. I cut all the major roots all the way around the tree. On the back side, the root ball is lifting; it’s up about 3 inches. The top of the tree is bent way over. But the tree won’t come down. I’ve cut gaps into what I think are the major roots, so the roots won’t bind and stop the tree from falling. But the tree won’t come down.

Now, I’m not that big a guy. At the time I was doing this, I probably weighed less than 150 lbs. And I have pipe cleaners for arms. My college roommate used to laugh because I could slide my watch from my wrist to my shoulder. He couldn’t get his to his elbow, mine went all the way. These Come Alongs were rated at 5 tons each. There is no way I with my limited physique could possibly break these things. This was my first under estimation of the power of mechanical advantage.

I make a decision to keep pulling on the tree until I can’t pull the lever anymore. It gets hard, but I pull all the cable in on the first one. I move back to the second one and start pulling again. The root ball is up about a foot, the tree is bent nearly in half. Then it happens. The Come Along just EXPLODES. Both ends come off the barrel the cable is wrapped around. The barrel itself collapses. The tree springs back. Now I’m in trouble. I have a tree that’s listing, the roots are all cut, I can’t use the Come Alongs and I can’t leave things the way they are. I call to my wife and tell her to stay inside and keep the kids with her. I ask her to call the neighbors to warn them of the impending peril. I jump in the car and fly up to Home Depot to buy a chain saw to finish knocking down the tree. A tool I didn’t want and shouldn’t have.

At the end of the day, the tree is down, I have a scary new tool, I have a destroyed Come Along and a stump I know I have to dig out by hand, which is what I was trying to avoid in the first place. Now comes the high point of the week end. I have to return the Come Alongs I’ve borrowed. This means another trip to Home Depot to buy my brother a new one, and while I’m at it get one for me because,,,,,,, I still have to pull the stump.

So I hand my brother the broken Come Along first. He’s both angry and puzzled. He’s angry I broke it, but puzzled as to how. After all they are rated for 5 tons each, and I have pipe cleaners for arms. I hand him the replacement, he’s now happy. We sit down for a couple of beers and a long discussion on the effects of mechanical advantage. This particular event makes me the brunt of all jokes and the target of ridicule for the remainder of the summer. All I can do is take it because, it was pretty dumb.

After having had this experience, you'd think I would have learned several valuable lessons. But I guess I’m not that bright. For you see, I still had a stump to pull, and my own Come Along to pull it with.

After staring at the stump for several weeks (I think it was laughing at me), I decide it’s got to go. I get up early, get my tools and have at it. Again I anchor my Come Along to a tree. I wrap a cable around the stump, pull out the slack and start hacking at the roots. Does any of this sound familiar? So I put tension on the stump and start cutting and digging. If I cut a root and the stump moves, I climb up out of the hole and add more tension to the cable. I’m doing this for an hour or so when I decide, to hell with this. I crank as much tension on the cable and stump as I think both can bear. I’m, in the hole digging and hacking when all of a sudden I hear a very deep, basso, THUMP!!! I think to myself, “great, that must have been the last big root holding the stump in” I climb up out of the hole so I can now remove the free stump, then it happens. The cable breaks. The end of the cable comes whipping around and hits me in the upper thigh. It took the leg right out from underneath me.

Over the course of my life, I’ve broken several bones. I broke my foot twice, my nose, an arm, multiple fingers, two knuckles, my hand and six ribs. This was the most painful thing I had ever experienced. 5 seconds after it happened, I would have staked my life on the fact that my leg was broken. It wasn’t. Fortunately, I had two open end wrenches in the pocket the cable hit. I believe these wrenches spread the forces out enough that it saved me from breaking the leg. I know the cable hit the wrenches because, they left an imprint in my thigh. I lay on the lawn for almost an hour before I tried to move. Lisa came to check on me, once. I made her leave. I just wanted to lay there clutching at the grass, growling like a dog.

I ended up with the deepest, darkest, most purplest bruise I or anyone else I showed it to ever saw. And it was huge. And it was deep. And it hurt. It turned the top of my thigh almost to hamburger. 5 days later, my leg was alternating between extremely cold, and extremely numb. I finally caved in and saw a doctor. You know it’s not good when the Dr recoils at the sight of your wound. The Dr kept saying things like: ooooooooo, owwwwwwww, yick, I can’t look. The leg was numb/cold basically because the bruise had gone deep enough to affect the nerve. To this day, the top of my leg still has a soft, squishy lump. And this happened about a dozen years ago.

So there you be. I scoffed at mechanical advantage a second time and paid the price.

So for the record. Be it known now and for all time, tipping over a tree is something I won’t try twice. Nor will I ever use another Come Along. And I most definitely will always pay close attention to the law of mechanical advantage. They call it a law for a reason.