The tree in the fork conundrum

As I mentioned in my post of Dec. 23 of last year, we had a large tree fall in our backyard that wedged itself completely in the fork of a sumac tree. The middle of the fallen tree was almost 8 feet off the ground. I cut away the limbs and tried to budge the trunk with my tractor scoop to no avail. I decided it prudent to call in some help.

My neighbor happens to have an engineering degree from Cornell in addition to a very large chainsaw. After analyzing the situation, Larry decided to take the bull by the horns and just cut the trunk in the middle. He sawed a deep V on the top of the trunk and then cut from underneath. When the two pieces fell the ground shook. We wrapped a logging chain around the end still in the tree and pulled it out.

I'm still trying to find out what type of tree it is. The wood is extremely dense and heavy without much grain. The worst thing is that the ugly sumacs are still standing, reading to catch the next tree in its trap.