Skylogging

I was determined to not let the Skyvine get the better of me.
Stripping down my pack to the bare essentials and making a new clock, it was time for round two.  The weather of course declined to cooperate, pouring down on my head.

The nights are so dark up here that it's almost impossible to work unless you've lit up a branch before the sun goes down.  There's too great a danger of accidentally stepping into a hole.  To safeguard my hard won resources this time, I put up a temporary chest near the ladder to periodically dump supplies in.

The nature of Skyvine is such that its branches run in long parallel strips.  The top few are easy enough to remove, once you clear some leaves, as there's the lower branches to catch you if they start to defoliate too quickly.  The lowest branch of course... doesn't leave anything at all. I snapped a quick picture behind me as I madly chopped towards the main trunk.

It took days and days to clear the top canopy of this small Skyvine, but it did offer a superb view of the Aurum Birch's top.

You can see the wooden bridge I built earlier to investigate its canopy.

I thought perhaps something about Canopy Carnage had broken Minecraft for a while when my dirt turned black, and I was unable to place any blocks to mark the main trunk's top.  I think it's simply because I'm at the very top of the map though, for putting a block one space down worked just fine.

I thought perhaps it would be necessary to remove the trailing vines as well to light the forest below, but the nature of their growth proved to be... extremely perilous to one's health, to say the least.

After a week in the sky, I had gathered a respectable quantity of logs and saplings, along with some precious mushrooms.  These ones at least, I would not allow to splatter on the forest floor.  Treasures in hand, I took one last look out at the Skyvine before retreating to the comparative safety of a hollow Shelf Pine.

Mission accomplished; it was time to go fishing.  Tomorrow, the Shadowheart would be next to go under the axe.