The Agony of a Buried Main Line

Chief of Operations writes:

We always try to set time aside in late October/early November to do tubing maintenance before the first significant snowfall. It is so much easier to repair animal chews, uncover the lines from blowdowns, and lift them off the ground when the forest floor is bare.

This year was particularly problematic as numerous heavy wet snowfalls in early December brought down so many broken branches and tree trunks, undoing the maintenance work we had accomplished in the fall. I would have to describe this year’s tapping as one of the most frustrating and time consuming I can remember due to the ubiquitous downed lines lying under a thick layer of crusted snow.

There was a large toppled maple lying on one of the main lines that was particularly exasperating. The butt end was lying directly on the line pushing it into the dirt, which then froze and became encased in dense snow. To make the situation worse it lay diagonally to the line rather than perpendicular.

Dealing with an obstacle as heavy as that log with only hand tools is no minor undertaking. It required two cross cuts, being careful not to nick the underlying line. Plunging the chainsaw into the dirt to finish the cuts created a dull blade that needed continual sharpening. Murphy ensured that I ran out of gas just before the final cut, and it was a long slog out and back getting a refill.

I managed to move the first log piece using a cut sapling as a pry bar, and the second one using a ratchet strap. In hindsight maybe I should have cut the line and support wire both sides of the log and spliced in new, though transporting the replacement parts and needed tools to this remote location probably wouldn’t have been any easier. 

This repair was rated SCI (some cussing involved).

-LC