Tell me something stupid you did!

Steve Connally said:
Yeah but that's not when I do it. I just seem to have a knack for nailing my line. Just replaced a line I put in service in February. I need to keep the tail outside my flip line It just tends so much better in the center and it's like some evil magnet for my spikes.
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I have a carabiner on my leg loop, out side of my knee. When I think about it I clip my tail to that with a revolver. Not perfect but helps.
 
rockettree said:
I've cut the rigging line, had a piece slip the rigging line, ascended a single rope without clipping my rope wrench to my bridge, stuff like that.

The most ridiculous accident I've ever had occurred when I was working a blown down spruce. I had the bright idea to hop up on top of it to chop up the top which was just put of reach from the ground. I cut off the top and a couple pieces of wood when it abruptly stood itself back up, launching me catapult fashion in to the neighboring yard! Luckily no injuries or damaged equipment.
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And thats how you got the name rocketree
 
colb said:
End of day, 30' up a Laurel oak spar, nature calls... I scurried down, dropped harness and dove across the 2-acre lot to the woods next to the property line. Took care of things, covered lightly with leaves, got back up for two more cuts. Neighbor stops in and says he's got a tree he wants me to look at, walks over to the woodline. It was 200yds away and he stepped in it in those pimply Adidas sandals! The odds, ya know...
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Did you get the job?
 
Early in the great recession (2007 or so) , business was slow in Denver and my new partner was trying to drum up business so I replied to a craigslist in Longmont (about 1.5 hours commute from my house). The cottonwood was in the backyard, but I scoped out the job from the street because the gate was locked and the homeowner wasn't there. It didn't look very tall and we were short on work so I bid $800. My partner rented a dump trailer for $200, and I rented a towable genie lift for $300. We left the chipper at home. I hired 2 friends to come help us.

Several things went wrong:
1. We started from my place at 8 AM, but rush hour traffic and a slow moving freight train delayed us until 11 AM.
2. The lift had ancient batteries and failed.
3. Dump fees were 3 times as expensive in Longmont, $100 a trailer load for green waste.
4. This 45 foot tall cottonwood was 40 inch DBH.
End of day 1, tree was 25% removed, we had spent $700, but we had bid $800.

I wrote a note to the client saying we were outmatched by the tree, no charge for service. We walked away and my new partner and I ate the cost down the middle. The client was livid, which I understand. I still screw up bidding, but not as often and I flat out refuse more giant cottonwoods especially if there is a commute.
 
Crimsonking said:
Did you get the job?
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Nah bra. The crazy thing was that he stepped on it, took another step, and started jabbering about his tree service history. The whole time I'd been lagging behind, betting that he'd stay with me to talk when the distance got too great, but he just walked off and kept talking! When he stepped off the pile I jumped over it to his side to keep him from going back on it, so we're totally in each other's personal space with the noticeable smell of sh*t lingering around and he's just talking for five minutes like that. It was nutz. He had my card and left a message. I left one back and things tailed off to impasse. I told my ground guys when he left and they were rolling. His general awareness was a little, well, lacking... One of those people you give a high bid to, lol.
 
kellytrimming said:
Early in the great recession (2007 or so) , business was slow in Denver and my new partner was trying to drum up business so I replied to a craigslist in Longmont (about 1.5 hours commute from my house). The cottonwood was in the backyard, but I scoped out the job from the street because the gate was locked and the homeowner wasn't there. It didn't look very tall and we were short on work so I bid $800. My partner rented a dump trailer for $200, and I rented a towable genie lift for $300. We left the chipper at home. I hired 2 friends to come help us.

Several things went wrong:
1. We started from my place at 8 AM, but rush hour traffic and a slow moving freight train delayed us until 11 AM.
2. The lift had ancient batteries and failed.
3. Dump fees were 3 times as expensive in Longmont, $100 a trailer load for green waste.
4. This 45 foot tall cottonwood was 40 inch DBH.
End of day 1, tree was 25% removed, we had spent $700, but we had bid $800.

I wrote a note to the client saying we were outmatched by the tree, no charge for service. We walked away and my new partner and I ate the cost down the middle. The client was livid, which I understand. I still screw up bidding, but not as often and I flat out refuse more giant cottonwoods especially if there is a commute.
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Oh my.....my....my...this thread gets interesting by the day
 
colb said:
Nah bra. The crazy thing was that he stepped on it, took another step, and started jabbering about his tree service history. The whole time I'd been lagging behind, betting that he'd stay with me to talk when the distance got too great, but he just walked off and kept talking! When he stepped off the pile I jumped over it to his side to keep him from going back on it, so we're totally in each other's personal space with the noticeable smell of sh*t lingering around and he's just talking for five minutes like that. It was nutz. He had my card and left a message. I left one back and things tailed off to impasse. I told my ground guys when he left and they were rolling. His general awareness was a little, well, lacking... One of those people you give a high bid to, lol.
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Ha ha....that is a shitty adventure
 
This one happening number of years ago... We got a job with a client that just wanted all the trees dropped, and there was a lot of trees. Probably 17 to 20 good size trees in his mid size yard. There was a simple fence around most of the property line that we had to miss along with other various obstacles in the yard one of them being a clothesline. One of my climbers was cutting down a large silver maple lead and trying to miss the clothesline, as he made his notch it looked to me like he favorited too heavily away from the clothesline but I didn't say anything. So, the tree came down, right through the fence. Strike 1...
The details on what happened next are a little fuzzy, since this was several years ago, but basically, my brother was in the tree and cut out a branch and somehow it also went through the fence. Stike 2.
So at this point I was the only one on the job who had not hit the fence yet, and since I wasn't really cutting anything down I figured I was probably pretty safe... my climber was up in a tree making a notch and we were going to pull the top away from some power lines going to the garage. So, I had to set a block in the woods and we were going to pull with the truck. After selecting a tree in the woods and setting the block I went out to the truck and prepared to pull the top over. As my climber signal that he was ready for me to start pulling I begin to add more tension to the rope and... The tree that I tied to in the woods was a dead spar that promptly broke and fell over... going right through the guy's fence. Strike 3... In my defense, the woods had a lot of thick underbrush that I was working my way through to find a tree to tie too and it was hard to see up through all the underbrush as well. Although, I obviously didn't look very hard...
Thankfully the hinge and the top was strong enough that it did not break out backwards and go through the power lines, that would have been bad. The story ends on a positive note though because after we were done taking down all of the trees, we were able to go and buy some Lumber, and some paint, and repair the homeowners fence to his satisfaction before we left for the day.
 
Gareth's Tree said:
This one happening number of years ago... We got a job with a client that just wanted all the trees dropped, and there was a lot of trees. Probably 17 to 20 good size trees in his mid size yard. There was a simple fence around most of the property line that we had to miss along with other various obstacles in the yard one of them being a clothesline. One of my climbers was cutting down a large silver maple lead and trying to miss the clothesline, as he made his notch it looked to me like he favorited too heavily away from the clothesline but I didn't say anything. So, the tree came down, right through the fence. Strike 1...
The details on what happened next are a little fuzzy, since this was several years ago, but basically, my brother was in the tree and cut out a branch and somehow it also went through the fence. Stike 2.
So at this point I was the only one on the job who had not hit the fence yet, and since I wasn't really cutting anything down I figured I was probably pretty safe... my climber was up in a tree making a notch and we were going to pull the top away from some power lines going to the garage. So, I had to set a block in the woods and we were going to pull with the truck. After selecting a tree in the woods and setting the block I went out to the truck and prepared to pull the top over. As my climber signal that he was ready for me to start pulling I begin to add more tension to the rope and... The tree that I tied to in the woods was a dead spar that promptly broke and fell over... going right through the guy's fence. Strike 3... In my defense, the woods had a lot of thick underbrush that I was working my way through to find a tree to tie too and it was hard to see up through all the underbrush as well. Although, I obviously didn't look very hard...
Thankfully the hinge and the top was strong enough that it did not break out backwards and go through the power lines, that would have been bad. The story ends on a positive note though because after we were done taking down all of the trees, we were able to go and buy some Lumber, and some paint, and repair the homeowners fence to his satisfaction before we left for the day.
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I've always liked that saying-The longer I do tree work, the better I get at building fences.
 
NorCalBrock said:
Who here has put diesel or gas in the wrong fuel tank? We've had two different guys do it, but we caught it before running the engines.
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Had a new groundie fill my excavator hydraulic tank with gas. I didn't know he did it, when we figured it out we had to drain the tank in the backyard because the viscosity was so low it wouldn't drive itself back to the road

I stepped out of the bucket to set a sling just out of reach about 15' off the ground. Lanyard wrapped around the pistol grip and up and away the boom went with me dangling like a dumby. Groundie lowered me back down, laughing the whole time. Of course my response after I got back into the bucket was - was anyone watching that? I started remembering the stop button after that
 
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We were having a class demo from a really skilled arborist who was demonstrating how to rig a traverse line between trees. One of the instructors parked his classic Volvo hatchback on the street about 40' from the trees. The throw bag got stuck and when the person doing the demo pulled hard on the throw line the bag let loose and shot like a rocket through the back window of the Volvo. It made a perfectly round hole through the window, and then we all stood there and watched as the window crumbled into about 5,000 pieces.
 
ARLO said:
We were having a class demo from a really skilled arborist who was demonstrating how to rig a traverse line between trees. One of the instructors parked his classic Volvo hatchback on the street about 40' from the trees. The throw bag got stuck and when the person doing the demo pulled hard on the throw line the bag let loose and shot like a rocket through the back window of the Volvo. It made a perfectly round hole through the window, and then we all stood there and watched as the window crumbled into about 5,000 pieces.
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I love it when stuff goes so"smoothly" during demos! We had a guy named Dave Hineline come out years ago and do some instruction with our crews on spurless climbing, using loopies, re-directs etc. It was a great experience for everyone. He asked if anyone could use a throwball and I had skeeels so I volunteered. I set a rope about 70' up in a co dominate (dead)pine and routed it around both stems and back down-Perfect Placement! Anyhow, he starts touting the advantages of re-directs and puts the rope through like 3 of them (not frictionless -no blocks). At this point, the safety director pulls up and starts watching. He notches the tree and gives the signal to pull. The tree comes over....right at the safety director's truck. Missed it short by like 3ft I swear and showers it with a million pieces of shattered pine. It was friggin awesome!
 
rbreesems said:
Not an arborist story, but involves tree climbing. Early on in my cat rescue hobby, got a call from a lady to rescue a cat. Got there, cat was 35 feet up skinny pine tree, no good limbs until cat. NP, I tell lady, I will use my spurs (only had used them about 3 times previously). Also had my nearly brand new tree motion harness. Started up tree, but my spurs kept slipping out and I would hang against tree. I notice my harness felt weird, like it was riding very high. I keep going up out of stubbornness, but soon start running out of energy. I also seem to be strangely out of breath, can't seem to breathe very well as my harness is riding high, constricting breathing. Gets worse each time my spurs kick out and I hang in harness. Finally, at 25 feet, I wrap my arm around a spindly limb, and decided I need to come down. I get my rope out, and my Figure-8 descender, but my oxygen-deprived brain can't make any sense of it. I start to panic a bit, yell at lady to call 911 (as if that would do any good, we were in the boonies). Her mouth is hanging open at my stupidity, but she makes the call. I am hanging there, getting dizzier by the second, when the limb breaks and I slide down the trunk about 10 feet, halt, then slide the rest of the way. Get a real good nasty scratch up my chest from a stub, ribs feel like they have been hit by a hammer. I hit the ground, lay on my back and gasp for breath. 911 person from phone is asking if I am OK. I look up, and the cat says "To Hell with This!", and starts coming down the tree, makes it to the ground, and takes off to the house. Lady looks at me like I am crazy. I apologize to lady and take off.

On drive back, I figure out what happened -- I had forgotten to belt my leg straps, so harness was coming up around chest, constricting breathing. I delete helmet cam video as it is too much a monument to stupidity. I tell my brother this story later, and we die laughing about it. Why I didn't just whip out a nylon loop runner (several on my harness) and form something for me to step in, I have no idea. My stupidity quotient was sky-high that day.

I have never used spikes since then, and learned how to do stem climbing with ropes, lanyards, loop runners (which I have had to do on 3-4 rescues since then and am now a semi-expert at it.).

The End.
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I have done the same thing with my Tree Motion about half a dozen times. I get in a hurry and forget to buckle one or both leg straps. Once you sit down in the saddle it doesn't take long to figure out that something is seriously wrong!
 
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