Falling Trees in the Wind

[CurSedVoyce]

BOY HOWDY it would have!

 

[woodworkingboy]

I see that there are lots of openings for hotel desk clerks, if anyone gets interested.

 

[MasterBlaster]

When I'm making a hairy cut and I get the heebee jeebees, I just say frig it! Get it done! 99% of the time, it all goes well. Sometimes though, I'll take a 'lil ride...

 

[murphy4trees]

That's the thing though... this wasn't a hairy cut.. it was simple.. I just wasn't paying attention... they say chess players peak at 35... It seems like as I got older, I lost some mental sharpness. I've been making A LOT more mental mistakes ... mostly on small, straightforward stuff, like this.. My productivity is up due to better skill and knowledge, which on a day to day basis, more than compensates for the mind slipping a little. But its still a concern. I used to go for what seemed like years between mental mistakes, and feel frustrated by watching those around me make so many.. Now it seems like some of those same guys are the ones that are on the ball, and keeping me in line... Its not something y9ou hear older pros talk about much... maybe they don't want to admit it even to themselves..

 

[treesmith]

O-o-o-r-r-r-r-r....maybe we're all not slipping quite so badly? I think it has more to do with the fact that as we get older, we get lazier, and take risky shortcuts at times, or just get in too big a hurry.

Glad all ended well, coulda been bad.

 

[murphy4trees]

not saying every older arb does.. just that you hear a lot of men talking about losing physical stamina as they age, not much about the mental though.. it's a factor..

 

[woodworkingboy]

Losing stamina is a given, and when it comes to sports and other physical activities, I think as an average they have it percentage wise worked out how much one can expect to lose, the norm per say. Compared to the average person, people making a conscious effort not to lose stamina, lose less. There are a few freaks.

 

[Al Smith]

Well this aging thing will get all you young bucks given enough time .You just learn how to do things a different way or else you flat quit .

 

[woodworkingboy]

The strangest thing about aging and stamina, is that now after a real hard physical day, the tired or physical over use effects are more apparent two days after, rather than the following day. Maybe if you do it everyday it won't catch up to you. :roll: I hear other folks saying the same thing. Wonder how that mechanism works?

 

[stig]

not saying every older arb does.. just that you hear a lot of men talking about losing physical stamina as they age, not much about the mental though.. it's a factor..

I think the gained experience makes up for the rusted together brain cells.

I started logging when I was 19.
Today I'm 55.

The younger folks that I work with are more agile, both physically and mentally, but I can still outlog them.

Simply because I make less mistakes. Less hung up trees, less badly placed trees, just gets everything to flow better.

Because I have felled trees by the ten thousand, they don't hold many surprises for me anymore.

It is pretty much, "been there, done that, got the t-shirt".

Arborism may be different.

As I wrote in another thread, I just last week backed out of my first tree ( huge beech removal leaning over a house) and let my younger climber take over. That tree just whipped my ass, and that has never happened before.
I'm still trying to find out what went wrong, apart from me being old.

I'll have to try another big nasty, before I'll willingly call it quits!

 

[Burnham]

It's possible, Stig, that it was just the way things looked and felt to you on that particular day. I recall well backing down from picking cones from a particularly challenging western white pine a couple of decades ago. My climbing partner looked at me, looked at the tree, and said, "no way for me either, then". It was tall, skinny, and had really small diameter whimpy looking branches in the upper crown, which of course was where the cones were.

We went on to other trees that day, and things went well. I went home and had a good night's sleep, came back to work and we went by that same tree. I looked at it again, decided it was climbable, did so and came down with 3 bushels of prime cones. It was a hard tree to work, and I was not particularly comfortable in it, but that day I just felt more able to handle it...to this day I don't know why.

So backing down isn't necessarily a sign that it's over for you, my friend. It was just over for that day in that tree.

 

[woodworkingboy]

I don't think that you can eliminate the level of concentration as a factor in how quickly one can work. That would seem lesser an age related element. Wasn't it Yosemite Sam in the cartoon that used to shout, "outa my way, outa my way"....

 

[Jack]

I think the gained experience makes up for the rusted together brain cells.

I started logging when I was 19.
Today I'm 55.

The younger folks that I work with are more agile, both physically and mentally, but I can still outlog them.

Simply because I make less mistakes. Less hung up trees, less badly placed trees, just gets everything to flow better.

Because I have felled trees by the ten thousand, they don't hold many surprises for me anymore.

It is pretty much, "been there, done that, got the t-shirt".

Arborism may be different.

As I wrote in another thread, I just last week backed out of my first tree ( huge beech removal leaning over a house) and let my younger climber take over. That tree just whipped my ass, and that has never happened before.
I'm still trying to find out what went wrong, apart from me being old.

I'll have to try another big nasty, before I'll willingly call it quits!

I don't think that you can eliminate the level of concentration as a factor in how quickly one can work. That would seem lesser an age related element. Wasn't it Yosemite Sam in the cartoon that used to shout, "outa my way, outa my way"....

Good points, Stig & Jay.

As an old boss once taught me: "Age and wisdom beats youth and strength every time." My son once told me after watching me piece out a tree: "Your level of concentration and intensity was cool." Now, THAT was way nice to hear ... NEVER heard anything like that from a teen, LOL.

Well I don't know but I've been told, you never slow down, you never grow old.
-- Mary Jane's Last Dance - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, 1993

 

[Al Smith]

Ha last summer in 94 degree heat I was falling splitting up a bunch of ash trees .I had a guy of about 35 helping me .One day after we got done he staggered into the house and told my wife he couldn't believe he got outworked by an old man .

The young bull and the old bull were in the pasture field overlooking a bunch of young cows .The young bull says to the old bull ,let's run down there jump the fence and breed one of those cows .The old bull says let's walk down,open the gate and get-em all .

 

[Tucker943]

I'm coming into this thread late. A few things, had a top sit back on me once and freak me out. Had to get down and pull it over. Had a truck tied to a big top with backlean once. Truck stalled, top came crashing down on me. That was a living hell and painful as well. I was standing in a crotch too during that critical cut. Never again. The lesson I learned from almost all of my mistakes, climb higher. Not climbing high enough has pretty much accounted for all of my mistakes earlier on.

 

[Jed]

Good sound wisdom Tucker--glad you're alright.

I second what Burnham said. I'll even add that I've been in the spot of being dead-dog tired after a long day, and then, for some reason, gotten a look at a big tree that we had for the next day. Just because I saw it when I was all fatigued, I went home all worried about the next day. Then after two beers, a big dinner and a big sleep, I went back in the morning and just laughed at that pig before I killed it.

I still--maybe always will--hate falling whippy Firs in the wind though. Just freeks me out, and I don't have enough experience at it. I'd rather just climb it, even if there's a really good shot for it from the ground. I'll leave it to Dave to shoot it between the house and the fence! Nobody at our company has the experience to do that. That was awesome.

 

[Al Smith]

I shot one through a gate opening last summer but it certainly wasn't the size of that big west coast fir .I'll bet that thing hit with a mighty thump .

 

[Jed]

Yup.

I'd be scared of dinging up the street too with the stubs from the broken limbs, but--I'm told--it seldom happens.

 

[SouthSoundTree]

Yup.

I'd be scared of dinging up the street too with the stubs from the broken limbs, but--I'm told--it seldom happens.

I've only used asphalt cold patch once, as a dead trees top caught the tip-top on the way down and rotated to be butt first in the driveway instead of flat. Boy did the cold patch do the trick well, and cheap. We used a brush torch to heat the area before and during tamping. Couldn't hardly even tell.

 

[Jack]

I've only used asphalt cold patch once, as a dead trees top caught the tip-top on the way down and rotated to be butt first in the driveway instead of flat. Boy did the cold patch do the trick well, and cheap. We used a brush torch to heat the area before and during tamping. Couldn't hardly even tell.

Nice tip, Sean!

 

[woodworkingboy]

"Look there, did you notice that bamboo roots are starting to push up through the asphalt?" The kicker is that you have to be in Asia.