Today....

I just got the last piece in the mail of my "Not the Captain Throwing Hook Kit" grappling hook setup. Bought the same 6L bag, 50' of 3/8" line, a prusik I already had and a Chinese-special grapple off Amazon that actually feels extremely solid. Nearly all of my work is in tall doug firs and the ability to better transfer between trees will be huge. So busy right now I'm not sure when I'll have time to experiment with it, but look forward to trying it out soon. Reg has made a few videos on his setup which opened my eyes to the possibilities, as I'm in the same general area.

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Friday. What a day. Climbing a giant deodar cedar tree in Portland. The tree was about 80 feet tall with a 50+ foot spread. Essentially it was built like a linebacker with no neck. The tree had multiple recent failures so we needed to do end weight pruning on a lot of the large outer limbs and tops. There were multiple targets and thus lots of rigging. Just to spice things up, the bid was really tight so we really had to move to get it done. We had two climbers in the tree and one ground guy helping both of us. Then the next door neighbor fired up his gas powered weedwacker. He ran that thing at full throttle almost the entire time we were up there working (3+ hours). He basically skinned his whole yard only stopping when he ran out of line or fuel. I have never wished for a piece of equipment to break so much in my life. I was picturing rappelling out of the tree and tapping him on the shoulder and then smashing the weedwacker to bits as he stood there with his mouth as wide open as he was running that throttle. Somehow we managed to communicate enough to get the tree done without incident and to almost be on budget. We ended up with a happy customer, hopefully a less failure prone tree, and by the grace of god a neighbor that is still alive...
 
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The old school 3 strand lanyard is cool! Looks easy on the hands. 3/4”?
For me 3 strand is hands down the best flip-line material, and I particularly like the Samson Pro-Master. Great hand. Rolls up a spar like a mofo. Super easy to splice. Strong & cheap. Rope in pic is 5/8", but 3/4" is even better when working a later tree... When I get into big trees I pull out the 7/8"
 
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Here's a tree I have to remove for the power company. Trying to decide if we do it with a crane and a line kill or do it hot and kill the lawn below. I have another one across the street that is like 4' off the lines that I could do the same day if we crane them.
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Over the weekend I took my parents on a quick day kayak trip to a tiny island, known for its wildflowers, just off mine that has what I think is one of the most beautiful doug fir in the region I know about.

Dougs are the vast, vast majority of the trees here but my favorite thing about them is how much their shape and size can change depending on the conditions. In open ground and good soil, a 70 year old tree will grow straight, bushy and may be 120' tall, but growing out of a crack in the rock the same 70 year old tree can literally be 3 feet tall and shaped like a twisted shrub. This particular tree, grown on the edge of rock and saltwater, shaped by winds and low nutrients, is maybe 65' tall and probably in the 150-200 year old range if I had to guess. Never touched by a saw, this is a totally natural structure and a treat to see.

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A yanmar vio35 followed me home. We have a thumb to put back on it. The guys I bought it from had a pin fall out. It's got a hydraulic quick coupler on it so swapping attachments will be easy. I'm planning to do a grapple and an auger. I already have an atom splitter so I'd like to use it on this.
 

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