- Hey everyone, my name is Matt. Today, we're gonna be going
on a bit of an adventure. We're gonna be going to
pick up a cherry tree. This is probably gonna be the, I think the furthest I've ever gone for any sort of log pickup. We're going from the Minneapolis
area to Cedar Rapids. It's about a four hour drive each way. Should be interesting. So we are going after a
really big cherry tree. So, this cherry tree blew
over in the crazy storm that went through that
area of Iowa last year. And unfortunately the
homeowners haven't been able to find anybody that wants to
do something with this tree, which is a pretty unfortunate. So they kind of expanded their search area of looking for people
that are interested in it. And myself and my buddy,
Josh got contacted. And we decided that it
would make the most sense for both of us to go because the tree is so
large that neither of us could get the whole thing
back here individually without doing multiple trips. So we're gonna do one trip with both of our trucks
and trailer or trailers. And it should be an interesting day. So Josh has coordinated a lot of this. He already coordinated with a
local tree service down there, which we're gonna be meeting up with around 11 o'clock this morning. It's six o'clock in the morning right now. So we have plenty of
time to get down there. The tree service has a clamp truck, a grapple truck or whatever. So they're gonna be able to load us. So the loading process should
be fairly straight forward. It's just a matter of getting down there and seeing kind of where things are at. I'm not really sure if it's been kind of bucked up into lengths yet, but it looks like we got
a pretty good butt section up to a large crotch. And then the two main stems
that go out from that crotch look like they were pretty vertical. So those are gonna be
good for the taking too. So yeah, I don't... I have an idea of what I'm getting into, but not quite 100% yet
what I'm getting into. So 263-ish miles we'll be going
here today or this morning, and then all the way back. So let's go. (truck engine revving) Everybody loves those drive off shots, but you know you gotta come
back and get the camera. So even though both Josh
and I live in this area, we're gonna be meeting up along the way. Our paths are kind of converge
somewhere along the way. Either we meet up along the
way on the road somewhere. Or we meet up when we actually get there. Passing through Rochester. I used to pass through here a lot when I used to live in La Crosse. I would have to come through here on the way to Minneapolis all the time. Okay, hello, Iowa. (Matt laughing) I think Josh is about like
four miles ahead of me, so I'm catching up. I think this is about
at the halfway point. So, officially in Iowa now. Look who I caught up to. - Lookin' up. How's it going? Fancy meeting you down here in Iowa. - [Matt] That's weird, huh? - [Josh] Yeah. - [Matt] You're a long way from home. - [Josh] What are the odds? - [Matt] Look at this big chicken. (Matt laughing) All right, back out onto the road. Like an hour and a half to go. We are here, well, we're in Cedar rapids. A little bit of driving to do, and we'll be there shortly. (truck engine revving) Gonna go up on the lawn here. Park over here. Tree guys are over there already. (Matt laughing)
What do we got? - Four feet, easy. - [Matt] Easy four feet, huh? - Good, solid eight feet to kind of the... Yeah, right to the crotch to that part is- - [Matt] That's eight? How long until the next
crotch, if you keep going? - 14 to here. - [Matt] 14? - God, these branches are huge. - [Matt] Are you tiny or is this tree big? - Yeah, I shrunk. I mean, just that piece there, six foot. This branch is 24 inches, and
that's 18 feet off the ground. - [Matt] This is pretty incredible. Man, look at this crotch. Look at this thing. How wide is this through here, anyway? Four feet up on the crotch here. - [Josh] Four foot, six to there. (Matt laughing) (grapple truck engine revving) (chainsaw humming) (chainsaw humming) (chainsaw humming) (chainsaw humming) (Matt laughing) - [Matt] It's so much hotter here. - [Josh] I know it. (wood cracking) (chainsaw humming) (chainsaw humming) (chainsaw humming) (wood cracking) (chainsaw humming) - [Matt] And that's
just part of the canopy. (chainsaw humming) (chainsaw humming) (chainsaw humming) That is crunchy. - [Josh] Yeah it is. (Matt laughing) - [Matt] Is that how you know it's moving, so everybody knows? (chainsaw humming) (chainsaw humming) (chainsaw humming)
(Matt laughing) What's up? Still going. - Gone to the bottom? (indistinct) (chainsaw humming) - [BJ] My biggest concern
is I can't grip it. And not being able to grip it, if we get this thing on the trailer, it could start doing whatever it wants, and I ain't gonna be able to stop it. I don't wanna destroy your stuff. And I don't want to destroy my truck. Do you have chains with you? Let's see if we can hook a chain, and see if we can lift it with a chain. If we can lift it. - [Josh] I can back up here. - [BJ] And we just slide
it slow, start working it. Let's try it that and see what happens. (chains rattling) - Wait, we all ready? (Matt laughing) - [BJ] Hey, when I go that
way, I can see right here. - [Josh] I think we're nice
and level now if we can do it. - [BJ] That's it right there. - [Josh] What do think this guy is? - [BJ] I'm guessing the
weight right around 9,000. I'm giving it everything
I got, and I can't- - You want more? You want me to hook you on the side? (grapple truck engine revving) - [Matt] A little bit. - That way? - [Matt] Yeah. - Just a hair that way. Make that one just a little tighter. - There you go, nice. Okay, all loaded up. And now we're heading out. Josh was trying to get out into
the driveway, it looks like. It's crazy how powerful
the wind must have been when it came through here. Think it was white oak
just snapped right in half. Crazy. Okay, well, time to drive home, I guess. That's a quick stop for
some snacks, some diesel. Back on the way. Just crossed into Minnesota from Iowa. So that means we got, I think an hour and a half, hour 45 to go back to the city Rochester. And then back up to the city's again. There's a sign. What do we got? Rochester, 39 miles. All right, we are back. Josh is going to back up the
driveway with that thing, and we're gonna get him unloaded because it's eight
o'clock at night already. Get him back home. And he's got like a 45
minute drive back home. We will, I'll unload this tomorrow. So, let's get let's get him on loaded. (telehandler engine revving) (telehandler beeping) - Good morning. It's quite the windy,
breezy day today here. So I'm gonna finish up
getting things put away today. So I am gonna go around
and seal the end grain of have all the logs with ANCHORSEAL. I have a video about sealing logs. Basically it just helps it
to not crack on the ends. And yeah, get my trailer unloaded. And then hopefully get these
kind of stacked and organized. And I guess I got to get that crotch out of the back of my
pickup as well, so yeah. Painting and material
handling this morning. And then we can call this
one, this adventure, done. This log here sitting in my driveway, I'm really glad we're
able to get it out whole because I think it would have been a shame to have to cut it down to two sections. That full 13 feet, it's awesome. (telehandler beeping) (telehandler beeping) (chains rattling) When I first showed the pickup
for this log on Instagram, we got a lot of questions on if this was a state record
holder for cherry trees. I had no idea. But when I got back, I pulled
up the Iowa DNR website. I got to their tree section, or whatever, the forestry section. They have a listing there of all of the state's biggest trees, as well as the instructions
for measuring these things to submit them. So we're gonna go through the process and see if this would have been a record-holding cherry
tree for the state of Iowa. So they do that based off
of three different criteria, the circumference, the total crown height, and then the total crown spread. So the first one is circumference. That's the one that I
can measure right now with the tree no longer in tree form. Since I have the butt log
here sitting in my yard. The circumference should be
measured at breast height. So if we take into account
the fact that we left part of the buttress of
the tree back at the site, that's probably about a foot. So if I come down a foot from
the 54 inches that they want, that measurements can
be a 42 inches around. Which actually works out really nicely, because in the instructions, if at 54 you're at a cross,
you should go beneath it. So 42 inches off the cut end of this log ends up being exactly where it should be based off of those measuring criteria. Now because the tree's already
all cut up and everything, the rest of this is gonna
be done in the computer. So I need a known length. So it take the total length of this log. And I measured that out to be 160 inches. So if I hop into the computer,
I can use my drone footage. I can get a screenshot of that
and bring it into Photoshop. And we can do some figuring
to get the overall height and width of this tree. So I can measure the photo for the section of the log
that's sitting of my yard. So that's 132 pixels for 160 inches. So we can get a conversion
factor from that. So our conversion factor
is 1.21 inches per pixel. Now, from there, I can measure
the total height of the tree in the image in pixels. And then do a little bit of
math to get the overall height. And then we can do the canopy
spread, which is probably like the biggest shot in
the dark for this one. This one should probably really be done with the tree actually standing. But I'll pick a spot that looks like kind of an average width canopy, and get a measurement for that as well. So let's see how our cherry tree did. We have three cherry
trees on this registry. So based on circumference, this
is the biggest cherry tree, at least bigger than these three. The next biggest one has a circumference of 11 foot 11 inches. So our 12 foot, four is a little
bit bigger in circumference than the previously largest
one in circumference. Height is where things kind of fall apart. Again, these are, that's
gonna be an estimate. This one is a bit shorter than
the shortest one listed here, which is listed at 77 3/4 feet tall. As far as the crown spread, that's the one that had like
the least amount of certainty. And at 33 feet, it's like
way behind everything else. The smallest one here is 52 feet. So maybe this was a record tree. It just depends on how it was measured. Of course, we'll never really know now that it's taken apart, but if it was measured
when it was standing, it might have been the biggest
one out of all three of those based on the other two criteria, which are just kind of estimates
based off of that picture. But by circumference alone,
biggest tree on the registry. (Matt laughing) Which is pretty absolutely mind blowing. So I had heard about the wind storm, the derecho, last summer, but I had no idea just
how devastating it was. I mean, like, you hear
how devastating it is but then you go there in person and you see just how like
all the trees are gone. And then there's still trees
laying down everywhere there. There's a lot of trees still down that still need to be cleaned up. And as I was talking
to BJ when I was there, their company's booked
out the entire summer still cleaning up stuff from last year. So they're just, there was so much destruction
through that whole area that they're still trying
to clean up all these trees. And they don't really have
anything to really do with them. So that's a super unfortunate. But this one will become
something someday. This is ridiculous. So big thank you to BJ and his crew from Cedar Valley Arborist. BJ was like very on board with this idea. So he is a supporter of crazy ideas. So I always appreciate
those kinds of people out in the world. So super, super nice
guy, super nice folks. I had a fantastic day. This was like some of them
the most fun I've ever had or I've had in a long time. Just going out for the day,
just hanging out with Josh, cutting up this tree, getting it loaded and bringing it back here. And just meeting some awesome people. Always, always fun. So yeah, we'll get this
thing cut up soon enough. I'm waiting for some blades to come in. And then I gotta make a short
bed extension for the saw so I can cut this whole thing. But small challenges now that this thing is laying here in the yard. So that's gonna do it for this one. Thank you, as always, for watching. I greatly appreciate it. If you have any questions or comments on this crazy adventure, or
anything back in the shop, please feel free to leave me a comment. As always, I'd be happy to answer any question you might have. And until next time, happy woodworking.
Why not just buy a d-tape instead of using a measuring tape?
That sleeveless guy looks like an idiot cutting those logs with no PPE.
Ouch. Those bucking skills made me cringe...
Not highly.