The white oak trunk we would not haul out

We turned down the part of this job that looked most like money. The tree was a large white oak standing on top of a hillside pasture, and a white oak butt log that size is worth something at a sawmill. Getting it down off a hilltop pasture is a separate question, and the honest answer was that our equipment and that ground were not a match. We said so, and we did not quote hauling the trunk off site.

What we did quote was the cutting. The oak was felled and cut down to sizes the homeowner could move without a log truck. That is what the homeowner actually asked for, and it was the useful half of the work. All the wood stayed on the property, where it can be handled a piece at a time.

Nothing stood near it — no structures, no lines, no fence to work around. One tree on open pasture, and less than a day of it.