Looking to start a career in tree work

in the past few months I have met a good handful of younger guys who are sincere and interested in learning how to fall trees, buck em up, split wood. . Giving some quick lessons as they help. One of them I am hiring to help me out tomorrow for a few takedowns and some clearing.

The cool thing is these guys just want to learn because they see it as a useful skill. They don't even have tree jobs. The learning and passing of skills is a huge value for me. These guys show a shine of true interest, curiosity, attention, and their desire to get the tools into their hands.

When I start talking about tension and compression a bit and they respond with detail questions instead of a shrug and grunt, I wonder, "where were all these guys on my old ground crews!?" haha, instead of "bring another saw! mine is stuck in the log again."

I am getting good feelings that there is more common interest in physical skills, craft, etc. definitely a good thing and I am grateful to be here learning too.
 
I think this is going to be my final post in this thread, the exception being milestones in the job (when I start “learning” climbing, getting my certification in the future) as they come and if I remember so newbies can see my personal timeline as someone starting with zero industry experience.
There’s so much incredible advice here that I’m so grateful for. You guys have done a wonderful job of helping me along with getting my start in this industry and I’ll never be able to thank you enough!
This week ended my 3rd week on the job and I love it so much more now that I don’t feel like I’m dying halfway through the day and am not miserably sore every night. I still get tired and lose steam after about 9 hours and after 10-11 hours I’m downright beat. But my body is recovering faster each day and by watching and asking questions (I’m on the best crew who push each other to improve something every single day and we are all super supportive of one another; despite many jobs where I’ve been told are like family, this job is the only one that’s felt like it: and they didn’t even have to say it) I’m learning more efficient ways to do things and new approaches that I hadn’t considered before.
I’m no longer going into work miserably sore in the morning. Honestly I feel good every day. Based on this, I feel that with another 3-4 weeks my body will have fully adjusted and I will hopefully be on a similar efficiency level to the rest of the crew.
Another piece of advice is to keep reading! I show up almost 40 minutes early every day so I can sit in my van and read books. I’ve read through Jeff Jepsons book Knots twice and Climbers Companion three times and last week started reading the Arborist Certification study guide which is absolutely jam packed with information and more reading suggestions. Everyone is extremely willing to answer questions and point things out and it feels like part of that is because I’m beginning to be able to ask questions to help my understanding of what I’m reading and not just depending on them to provide information as they remember to mention it. The rest of the team can’t be more invested in teaching you than you are. It just wouldn’t be worth it for them to try to teach you more if you weren’t trying to soak up as much as you can.
There’s still a long way for me to go and despite spending a lot of time with the chipper I still can’t hump huge brush piles in to the feed wheel like the other guys do. They keep telling me that it comes with time though so it’s just down to keeping at it and trying to do better every day. There’s so much more to raking than I’d have ever thought and I get a lot of time to spend with the rake to practice improving. Plus I keep eyeballing the groundskeeper now and wondering if the hype is real :LOL: Even dragging big brush piles has more to it than meets the eye. The way you pile everything up has profound effects on how it drags, how much debris gets left behind, the way it picks up at the chipper feed bed, and even how well it feeds into the chipper as a bundle. The advice about keeping an eye on how I’m doing things has been so much deeper than simply observe what I’m doing so I don’t hurt myself as I initially believed.
I truly love this job and every single day I gain a slightly better understanding of all the advice you guys and the guys at work give me. I’m excited to see what the future holds. Thank you guys for everything! :birra:
 
I think this is going to be my final post in this thread, the exception being milestones in the job (when I start “learning” climbing, getting my certification in the future) as they come and if I remember so newbies can see my personal timeline as someone starting with zero industry experience.
Lord Baby Arm said:
There’s so much incredible advice here that I’m so grateful for. You guys have done a wonderful job of helping me along with getting my start in this industry and I’ll never be able to thank you enough!
This week ended my 3rd week on the job and I love it so much more now that I don’t feel like I’m dying halfway through the day and am not miserably sore every night. I still get tired and lose steam after about 9 hours and after 10-11 hours I’m downright beat. But my body is recovering faster each day and by watching and asking questions (I’m on the best crew who push each other to improve something every single day and we are all super supportive of one another; despite many jobs where I’ve been told are like family, this job is the only one that’s felt like it: and they didn’t even have to say it) I’m learning more efficient ways to do things and new approaches that I hadn’t considered before.
I’m no longer going into work miserably sore in the morning. Honestly I feel good every day. Based on this, I feel that with another 3-4 weeks my body will have fully adjusted and I will hopefully be on a similar efficiency level to the rest of the crew.
Another piece of advice is to keep reading! I show up almost 40 minutes early every day so I can sit in my van and read books. I’ve read through Jeff Jepsons book Knots twice and Climbers Companion three times and last week started reading the Arborist Certification study guide which is absolutely jam packed with information and more reading suggestions. Everyone is extremely willing to answer questions and point things out and it feels like part of that is because I’m beginning to be able to ask questions to help my understanding of what I’m reading and not just depending on them to provide information as they remember to mention it. The rest of the team can’t be more invested in teaching you than you are. It just wouldn’t be worth it for them to try to teach you more if you weren’t trying to soak up as much as you can.
There’s still a long way for me to go and despite spending a lot of time with the chipper I still can’t hump huge brush piles in to the feed wheel like the other guys do. They keep telling me that it comes with time though so it’s just down to keeping at it and trying to do better every day. There’s so much more to raking than I’d have ever thought and I get a lot of time to spend with the rake to practice improving. Plus I keep eyeballing the groundskeeper now and wondering if the hype is real :LOL: Even dragging big brush piles has more to it than meets the eye. The way you pile everything up has profound effects on how it drags, how much debris gets left behind, the way it picks up at the chipper feed bed, and even how well it feeds into the chipper as a bundle. The advice about keeping an eye on how I’m doing things has been so much deeper than simply observe what I’m doing so I don’t hurt myself as I initially believed.
I truly love this job and every single day I gain a slightly better understanding of all the advice you guys and the guys at work give me. I’m excited to see what the future holds. Thank you guys for everything! :birra:
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Surely, you may very well become the best of us.

You’re update is very encouraging man. Glad you’re liking it. I admire your dedication. Best of luck to you and hope to cross paths someday.
 
@Lord Baby Arm , do your best to get to Indianapolis this November for the TCI expo. Some of us will be there and would love to meet you.

Thanks for your update. Please do keep us in the know as you reach milestones!! And, if you will, please share any insights you have about each step in your growth. Those insights can be gold for those of us who have been in the game for a while. It helps us better connect with those we teach. So please, please share your thoughts as you progress.

Have you started using a chainsaw yet?
 
Crimsonking said:
@Lord Baby Arm , do your best to get to Indianapolis this November for the TCI expo. Some of us will be there and would love to meet you.
Have you started using a chainsaw yet?
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I will try to make it, but I can’t promise anything yet.
I’ve used battery saws around my property (I bought wooded land and cleared some to put my house on) for a few years. But at work the most I’ve done with a chainsaw is learn to take them apart for cleaning, replace/adjust chains, and to start and warm them up for the other guys. I believe the boss wants to be the one to teach me how to use the saws so I haven’t had the opportunity to use one at work yet, though it’s been tempting a few times when I needed a large limb cut so I could feed it to the chipper. I just gotta trust the process and continue learning as much as possible in the meantime. I’m sure that using the saws will come soon enough.
 
Lord Baby Arm said:
I think this is going to be my final post in this thread, the exception being milestones in the job (when I start “learning” climbing, getting my certification in the future) as they come and if I remember so newbies can see my personal timeline as someone starting with zero industry experience.
There’s so much incredible advice here that I’m so grateful for. You guys have done a wonderful job of helping me along with getting my start in this industry and I’ll never be able to thank you enough!
This week ended my 3rd week on the job and I love it so much more now that I don’t feel like I’m dying halfway through the day and am not miserably sore every night. I still get tired and lose steam after about 9 hours and after 10-11 hours I’m downright beat. But my body is recovering faster each day and by watching and asking questions (I’m on the best crew who push each other to improve something every single day and we are all super supportive of one another; despite many jobs where I’ve been told are like family, this job is the only one that’s felt like it: and they didn’t even have to say it) I’m learning more efficient ways to do things and new approaches that I hadn’t considered before.
I’m no longer going into work miserably sore in the morning. Honestly I feel good every day. Based on this, I feel that with another 3-4 weeks my body will have fully adjusted and I will hopefully be on a similar efficiency level to the rest of the crew.
Another piece of advice is to keep reading! I show up almost 40 minutes early every day so I can sit in my van and read books. I’ve read through Jeff Jepsons book Knots twice and Climbers Companion three times and last week started reading the Arborist Certification study guide which is absolutely jam packed with information and more reading suggestions. Everyone is extremely willing to answer questions and point things out and it feels like part of that is because I’m beginning to be able to ask questions to help my understanding of what I’m reading and not just depending on them to provide information as they remember to mention it. The rest of the team can’t be more invested in teaching you than you are. It just wouldn’t be worth it for them to try to teach you more if you weren’t trying to soak up as much as you can.
There’s still a long way for me to go and despite spending a lot of time with the chipper I still can’t hump huge brush piles in to the feed wheel like the other guys do. They keep telling me that it comes with time though so it’s just down to keeping at it and trying to do better every day. There’s so much more to raking than I’d have ever thought and I get a lot of time to spend with the rake to practice improving. Plus I keep eyeballing the groundskeeper now and wondering if the hype is real :LOL: Even dragging big brush piles has more to it than meets the eye. The way you pile everything up has profound effects on how it drags, how much debris gets left behind, the way it picks up at the chipper feed bed, and even how well it feeds into the chipper as a bundle. The advice about keeping an eye on how I’m doing things has been so much deeper than simply observe what I’m doing so I don’t hurt myself as I initially believed.
I truly love this job and every single day I gain a slightly better understanding of all the advice you guys and the guys at work give me. I’m excited to see what the future holds. Thank you guys for everything! :birra:
Click to expand...
Oh hell yes! You got in on a good crew, and a good tree crew is tree family. The comradeship In a good tree crew I can only imagine is rivaled with in the military. Hell you don’t even really have to like each other, but a good crew respects each other without hierarchy. Do us all proud and no thanks is needed
 
Well, I hit a milestone on Saturday that I was hoping to avoid. The boss called me and told me that because of the distance I lived from work things weren’t going to work. Essentially, if I understood correctly, it’s not worth it for me to drive 2-1/2 hours on short Fridays when he only needed me for 4 hours which sometimes left him short handed. I was grateful he called me on Saturday rather than dropping it on me first thing Monday. I can definitively say I’m going to miss working with everyone there; they all had so much to teach me and my only regret is that I couldn’t improve fast enough to get to the point where I was worth occasionally being short handed on a Friday or till I could have moved closer. It was an amazing introduction to the industry and they are an amazing company to have been a part of. I’m extremely thankful for the opportunity I had with them. The boss even helped put me in touch with someone about an opportunity for another job that has a lot of potential if it interested me. Unfortunately it was to do landscaping for a college and they don’t do any tree work which is kinda what my heart is set on now.

With that in mind, now I need to find another company that would preferably be closer to home, hopefully safety oriented, and looking for a groundie that has minimal experience but is motivated, consistent, and hardworking. Despite the long drive, I was never late and in fact I was usually the first person at the shop every morning. And I’d like to think that my work ethic earned the respect of the guys I worked around, even if I wasn’t nearly as good as the rest of them yet. So wish me luck guys, the journey continues regardless of this minor detour
 
Lord Baby Arm said:
Well, I hit a milestone on Saturday that I was hoping to avoid. The boss called me and told me that because of the distance I lived from work things weren’t going to work. Essentially, if I understood correctly, it’s not worth it for me to drive 2-1/2 hours on short Fridays when he only needed me for 4 hours which sometimes left him short handed. I was grateful he called me on Saturday rather than dropping it on me first thing Monday. I can definitively say I’m going to miss working with everyone there; they all had so much to teach me and my only regret is that I couldn’t improve fast enough to get to the point where I was worth occasionally being short handed on a Friday or till I could have moved closer. It was an amazing introduction to the industry and they are an amazing company to have been a part of. I’m extremely thankful for the opportunity I had with them. The boss even helped put me in touch with someone about an opportunity for another job that has a lot of potential if it interested me. Unfortunately it was to do landscaping for a college and they don’t do any tree work which is kinda what my heart is set on now.

With that in mind, now I need to find another company that would preferably be closer to home, hopefully safety oriented, and looking for a groundie that has minimal experience but is motivated, consistent, and hardworking. Despite the long drive, I was never late and in fact I was usually the first person at the shop every morning. And I’d like to think that my work ethic earned the respect of the guys I worked around, even if I wasn’t nearly as good as the rest of them yet. So wish me luck guys, the journey continues regardless of this minor detour
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Sorry to hear about them letting you go. An odd decision on their part based on your side of the story as I'm guessing he wasn't paying you for your drive time or mileage so that was all on you and really didn't effect him. Now if you were choosing to not come in on Fridays because of the drive time and he had someone lined up that was closer and could be there everyday no matter how many hours it was for, then okay I somewhat understand. But it is also so hard to find anyone now days willing to work and learn like you are. With that being said, I'm sure those 2 desires alone will find you another job rather quickly in todays world.

Best of luck and hope to see the next "milestone" post soon about you starting with another tree crew!
 
Thought I would bump this thread.

I am Currently in a similar situation of leaving my current position and transitioning into tree work full time.

On my one week day off I have been working for a small crew (3-4 total members including owner on any given day.) ground work rigging and as of yesterday, climbing! The owner and one other guy, who is my mentor so to speak, are the only climbers on the crew. I am super excited to be taking on more responsibility and learning so many new things. I am going to be so good with a rake :)

I have taken it upon myself to learn as much as possible about saw work since I was a young'n. And it is reassuring to know some of the techniques I taught myself are accurate to the industry standard. As well as some that I now know are wrong!

This seems to me like it is a calling...

I wont count my eggs before they're hatched but yeehaw!
 
Awesome man, learning a new skill is exhilarating.

I'll reiterate My earlier post about ergonomics. This is an absolutely critical time in developing good habits. When I started it was really important to me to keep up with the veterans. That meant Doing stuff the easiest way fir my body. I now have to put Lots off effort into undoing that habit, because Ive developed lopsided Strength for certain actions.

Drag brush on alternating Sides of your body, same with raking and other mindless tasks. Try to use both sides equally when climbing too, saws Are the only tool used in one position, otherwise Mix it up. may Be slower to start, but will keep You more fit as an industrial athlete
 
SeanRuel said:
I'll reiterate My earlier post about ergonomics.

Drag brush on alternating Sides of your body, same with raking and other mindless tasks. Try to use both sides equally when climbing too, saws Are the only tool used in one position, otherwise Mix it up. may Be slower to start, but will keep You more fit as an industrial athlete
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Simple but profound advice. I always remember this when I go help my friends hoe and rake out their farm beds. Switch sides, it feels great. If you find yourself in a repetitive action or position, take a moment to stretch your body the total opposite direction once in a while (throughout the active session).
 
Week three full time with the crew.

It's been amazing.

Got on spurs for one quick removal. That is a different world! But getting more comfortable with all the things.

Rigging has been great fun, and I have been making it a point to be approaching tasks with the mind set of "how can I make this the most efficient method possible."

Felling logs has been good fun too. Getting better with my face cuts and again soaking up all the nuances of the veterans movements.

I started driving the chip truck and chipper, which I know takes a little bit of stress off of the #2 guy on the crew. He had said before he didn't feel he could take a day off of work because it would leave the boss up the creek.

We have a solid situation happening and I am loving life!

Cheers to an abundance of learning and hard work for many years to come :)

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