Mulberry and bad language from a member of my household.

[Indiana Robinson]

We were out back looking at a big old mulberry that blew down planning on how to get it down to logs. This is a special hybrid that we planted many years ago (just one tree) that does not ever have any berries on it. It has more limbs than some of those shaggy looking hedge trees that grow wild. It will produce several decent logs about 16" but it is so shaggy that if I didn't need it gone from where it is I might just leave it laying where it is. There are 2 trunks but they are still supported by the brush at about 5 feet off of the ground. I can't just walk in and cut it, I'll have to "mine" my way in and it is going to be one of those that can shift quickly and unpredictably. I have cut an awful lot of trees over the years in some pretty squirrely spots but this kind always make me a little nervous. Limbs just go everywhere. 
I might hook onto the bases and drag them out in a horse lot and maybe roll them a time or two.

Now if any of you guys think that you have ever thrown a bad tantrum or rant you should have seen our dog while I was looking at that tree. She somehow got into the electric horse-lot fence... She began a whole series of yells that probably scared every dog, cat and coyote in a 5 mile radius. I am not real fluent in "dog" but I know that most of what she was saying would not be repeatable here. She was only about 100' from the fence charger, standing in wet grass. That charger is rated to charge 100 miles of fence... I'm here to tell you that she was one well charged dog... She ducks under those fences all of the time and on rare occasions I have heard her give a "yipe!" and go on but last night everything must have been just right. (or she would probably say "wrong").  ;D


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[cutterboy]

Be careful of those trees with lots of limbs. Years ago my older brother was limbing a shaggy tree when it started to roll. As it rolled branches caught him by his pants and shirt and lifted him up off the ground. When the tree stopped rolling he was up in the air six feet above the trunk and he couldn't free himself. :D :D He had to wait till his partner cut him free. :D :D

[Al_Smith]

There are male and female mulberry trees which are second cousins to the osage orange .

As luck would have the only male I have,near the house  is several hundred feet from the nearest females in the fence row which produce the berries .Were it the other way around the starlings which love the ripe fruit would have purple painted my house by this time .

[Bibbyman]

Check out malbeery poisoning. Had an old friend that had very bad blisters on his legs. He went to the doctor and was diagnosed with malbeery poisoning. He'd been clearing fence rows and had cut up malbeery.

Apparently the sap is poisonous (maybe not all species?) And the berries can be poisonous when green.

Maybe worth a Google.

[moandrich]

When I cut a tree that I am not at least 95% where it will go I keep tying ropes to it, eliminating the bad spots and winch it toward the good spots.  I am not proud, I will put 6 ropes on the same tree it that what it takes.  Cutting wood is a hobby for me, it does not pay the mortgage. (a piece of equipment pushing helps also}