Lucky guess

[jackpine]

About 15 ft. off the sw corner of my tractor shed wae a bigtooth aspen, 16" dbh.

I noticed a vertical depression 10 ft. up, about 2 ft. long, in the trunk. The bark looked almost loose in that area and I worried that there might be rot or a soft spot. Exposed to the wind I didn't want it to snap off and land on my shed so I took it down today.

At that area there was a pie shaped wedge of rot that went all the way to the heart. Good thing I got it before it leafed out and the summer windstorms came.

It was 65 ft. tall and 45 years old, about as long lived as bigtooth get in this dry sand country.

It also dropped one dead limb as I was driving the wedge in and two more as it started to tip :-[ I hate felling old aspen :-[ Glad I did this one tho

[mikeandike]

Good for you!

Careful observation of your place probably saved you shed.
We get to where we don't notice sometimes the details of the places
that we spend a lot of time in.

I cut lots of stuff for other people and then the other day I notice
a tree that is diseased next to the sawmill.

should have seen it earlier.

Mike and Ike