Not sure about moms area but my dads area/farm is the same. No one’s in a hurry to do anything. Make a plant to get a job done and it takes a month before anyone’s ready to act on it. They kept telling him to slow down, no hurry.
You can’t use a chainsaw to notch the trunk before doing the main cut(s) to drop it where you want it? I’ve used large 4x4 posts and/or plywood to help block and guide the tree if I was worried it might hit something. More like deflecting the tree and guiding it to the ground.