todays job

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for those on here who like country music, I spent all day working across fron Carrie Underwood's new house.

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hate country music but carrie underwood aint exacly ugly
 
Helped another tree service today. Owner had gotten in a little over his head, expecting to get it done in one day. Turned out that he worked on it the other day with two groundies, I put in 5 hours with him and his two groundies, then he chunked down the spar for a little while, maybe an hour, but was getting too frustrated, so he is going back tomorrow to finish the spar. All for a thousand bucks!!

Tree is 2" from the deck on the side. The corner of the deck extends 8" past the tree, and the drop is on top of pavers between the stairs and a fence, about 7' wide.

Chunking down onto two layers of tires and a rubber horse stall mat. Amazing energy absorbtion. Little rebound from 90'+ with the smaller stuff.

I finished the limbing via controlled speedline (he was straight down lowering into a tight spot with long limbs), climbing past the first broken point on the Doug-fir, with one main lead going off there, with minor lead next to it, up to the second broken off point, topping from there. Catching the top, he locked it off badly. Most shaking I've experienced on a top catch.

He'll go back to finish the remaining 25' or so in the morning. He said he got below the level of the tile roof, then quit for the day.


All this looking over the Puget Sound, once the fog burned off. Little time to look, trying to orchestrate a circus. I'm trying to get him on hardhats, glasses, climb line. I think that he's getting the idea.

Picture with spar top at first stem break, way long time ago, 16" diameter.
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That one wasn't so big, just in a tight drop with expensive things to work around. Low 30's DBH.

I'll admit that I would have liked tree spikes for this last cut. I used a ladder to access the tree above the thickest bark, and was happy in pole spike the whole rest of the tree. I has tree spikes in the truck, but didn't want to switch for one cut, though in hindsight, maybe it would have been worth it, as this was a little awkward to get good positioning and had to double cut with a 28", so I just went with the double cut on with the 20", I think. Looking from this perspective is a smaller width on the oval shaped trunk.

A lot of sweep in the butt, and previously topped, so the butt was large, over 40" DBH I think. Hard to tell 'cause there are a bunch of big trees in the picture. But I didn't have to cut lower than this last 16'-ish log, nor did we cut the firewood. Lady has a relative with a bandsaw mill. This had a bigger dropzone for chunks, so I could "Magic Cut" them off into a mulched flowerbed at a couple of feet tall apiece, rather that pushing off 16"'s.

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Looking for what work is being done.
Don't need any super heroes here.
Just wondering what work is being done and the area it is being done in.
Ex. Today I took down 8 oaks at a bank. Most were about 60ft. and a victim of the gypsy moth. Price is not a factor. Just trying to gauge the work going on in different parts of the country and who does what.

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Pictures, pictures, who's got some pictures? A nice narrative will do, too. Lurkers, I'm talkin' to you. Share what's going on in your world. Ladies are especially asked to participate, balancing out our male-heavy industry!!
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This is one of the first threads that I look for when getting on TB (I get on TB occasionally
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goes well with a coffee in the morning, and glass of wine at night, and to give me something to think about during the day).
 
I'm a big eater. That hand truck helps with the fridge. Used to have to carry it. Has cool one in it for the end of the day.

Anyone see They Call Me Bruce. Funny spoof.

What you been up to at work, Rob? Any new pic or video?

Off to prune some trees that I didn't get to finishing yesterday.
 
Today and yesterday(tomorrow too) I was working for the local Provicial Park, extremely boring, setup the bucket- deadwood this bur oak - drive ahead deadwood that bur oak - drive ahead deadwood the next bur oak, I swear I may dive head first out of the bucket tomorrow just for a break in the monotony.

But here are some pics from nextdoor to a job I was at a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to post here, they are of a blue spruce that somebody excavated way too close to.


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Sorry for the oversized pics. I cropped them twice, but for some reason they aren't showing as they should.



We were supposed to have rain today, but it was actually great working weather. The only time that the breeze was blowing was when I was trying to get small tops out of the 3rd and 4th removals. These were closed canopy grown trees, until the the clearing for a house happened. They didn't have much taper for their height. I felt like I was waving around up there. Normally, I don't notice the stem moving, since its my reference point while I'm concentrating while climbing.

The first two trees were over a small cedar and small cherry, so we speedlined all the brush to the chipper.

Topped out Doug-fir interior tree #1 in circle drive island.
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Dropping logs after tree #2.
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Dropping off logs with deeply sniped snap cut on #2.
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Trees 3 and 4 were cut and throw, or cut, swing and push. Able to have chipper just outside of dropzone.

Skinny interior tree #4 at corner of house. Large tree limbs from adjacent larger trees had the top penned in, which would have wanted to roll a loose top onto the house. Being and interior tree, it had less than average taper, and was wobbly, so I didn't want to catch the top on the spar. Went up as high as I could, and faced the top into the large adjacent limbs, backcutting with stump shot. Top tipped 20-30 degrees and came to a rest on the other limbs, allowing me to finish the hinge with a handsaw, sheath it, then hand over hand the top down, dragging along the adjacent branches, until I could push it away from me.
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They're going back to load logs tomorrow, and do a bit more chipping and final clean-up. 9 hours onsite today. Looked like this near the end of the day when I had to go bid a job.
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Slayed four smallish Lombardy pop's today in Grantite Falls, in the Cascade foothills. Was supposed to be a bit wet, so I left the camera gear at home....

I did the two middle trees. Popped a 47 foot top, set a block/lowering line at about 65 feet....the tree was a mere 18" dbh, if that. Swung over to the slightly shorter one, which was barely 12". The act of swinging over and tying in darned near brought the two stems together...moved them a good 6-7 feet anyhow. Brought it down to 30 feet. Touched ground after maybe 18 minutes....forgot to time it. Then Eric did the two larger end trees, might have taken an hour each. Total job time about 14 hrs, or $95 per man hr

I'd given the customer a $300 break if he dug out two espaliered apples in the drop zone...he did, and moved a couple more. Had he not done that, the job would have been tough, as there would have been little room to lower limbs, and we might have had to lower tops...never fun with spindly poplar.

Eric decided to lower an appx 9" by 40 foot limb, off the 65 foot spar, which was slung with the block at a mere 8" diameter or so. Needless to say, the spar bent wildly. The limb butt came down fast, as Brian had to let it run to limit the shock loading..The tip touched down almost immediately in its swing. The butt swung down, just stopping a couple feet above a nice dogwood, which we had to avoid..then sprung up a good 6-8 feet as the spar straightened back up, then came down again, not far from me, as I waited to handle it.

Woulda made an awesome video.

Brian and I then chastised Eric to maybe go a bit smaller.

LOL!

2nd job, also way out in Granite, entailed cutting overhanging limbs along a prop line...for a drop dead gorgeous school teacher...her daughter was just as hot.....she also skis..and is single...hmmmmmmmm The neighbor is a bitch and is sueing her for "killing" her trees...which is total nonsense. This neighbor is a very odd coot, has 70 cats...and has installed an ugly bunch of vertical pieces of wood to make a higher "fence" and even requested the show "Judge Judy" cover the spectacle. My client declined. I thought she'd be out chastising us, ,but alas, I wasn't able to laugh in her face...as we trespassed for nary a moment.

Then, we dumped chips for a very pretty lady, who had a pasture full of ponies, goats, donkeys....and Brian's heart went pitter pat for the third time today...mine too....

I've been quite busy of late...have scads of photos and videos to edit, dunno when that will happen.

Plus, there's 3-4 feet of snow in the mountains already, and I'm itching to turn and burn. Alas, feezing levels are s'posed to jet up to close to 10,000 feet..dang it.
 
Rog,
Bet that woulda been a cool video. I'll take the weather we got over the predicted rain. It did a tiny bit of drizzling in Oly, until I got in my truck, then it came. You guys stay pretty dry?
 
At risk of looking like a total weeny in this thread...

Travelled down to Atlanta yesterday to the school that my family runs. I was the "guest lecturer" (haha) in my brother's 5th grade class, which is currently studying botany. We walked around outside and looked at water oaks, green ash, hackberry, winged elm, among others, and talked about leaves, bark, etc. The kids were impressive - they already knew the difference between simple and compound leaves, and opposite and alternate leaf arrangement.

Then, as a bonus, I got to do a "demonstration" climb for them in a surprisingly cool, old Box Elder. That presentation had plenty of the "don't try this at home" warnings. Nevertheless, the kids were quite entertained. I hope I burned the image of spike-less climbing into their heads so that they at least have that criteria to go by when they hire a company as adults.

Before they went back to their classroom, their thank you was to sing the kids' song about Zaccheus climbing into a Sycamore to see Jesus. Had time to clean out the whole crown of the Boxelder once they were gone.

Perfect weather - 68 degrees, light breeze, clear sky.
An unusual and a good day.
 
Nice work Robert!

Grade 5's can be a tough crowd, already too cool for what you have to say.
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I really enjoy teaching kids. Starting to think about an Arbor Day talk for my kids school...
 
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At risk of looking like a total weeny in this thread...


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Nothing weeny about education a whole new generation. Good work!

I bet a lot of parents heard around the dinner table that their kid want to become an arborist.
 
Two of today's jobs, before and after.

Fraxinus quadrangulata. Just crown cleaning, rubbers, crossers, dead and broken stuff. This one is in a fairly busy high-visibility spot so it got some love. EAB is imminent here, I couldn't help but feel like this might be one of the last times I prune an Ash, rather than all removals.
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Quercus robur 'Fastigiata'. This one is in the middle of nowhere in a big oak colection. There is an upcomming tree dedication ceremony nearby and this one was id'ed as an eyesore. Removed the dead tops, the interior dead stuff, and even went at it with a hedgetrimmer to even it all up around the outside. Seemed to go alright, but I still think of a Barbapapa whenever I finish this kind of work.
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I'm loving this weather!
 
Pruned a bunch of Black Walnuts today. I start really early (6am) and the fog was so thick you could cut it with a handsaw. The trees were all wet from it and now my gear and I are all covered in walnut stink goo!
Beautiful day after all the fog burned off.
 
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and the fog was so thick you could cut it with a handsaw...Beautiful day after all the fog burned off.

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Nice.

We've got the same weather up here on top of the mountain where I work. Except we're in clouds, not fog. Sometimes we're above the clouds!

Juglans nigra - great trees...I had a great climb in the one I'd started a thread about several weeks back. I still can't get all that crap off my saw though..
 
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