Good Morning!

I'm getting ready to head out and hopefully finish that maple. I'm only concerned about the limb facing the house. No real danger to person or property, and I'll get it down, but I want to look competent while I do it. It has a decent lean to it, and I don't have much experience spurring leaners. Sunny, breezy, and cool today. I could do without the sun, but otherwise, it's a good day for trees.
 
Spurring a leaner, no one says you have to be on top of it. Have weight on your tie in and go up the side of it. At your cut, futz around with lanyard, lifeline and foot placement until you feel golden. I usually put both arms out to the sides to check my balance and then grab my saw and cut.

And have fun. Don't worry about looking competent to people on the ground. They're on the ground for a reason.

Sorry about the pep talk. Too much coffee already.
 
Going up the side was possibility I was heavily considering. My geometry with the climbline will be very good. Just have get on it and see what happens.
 
A solid TIP plus an extra high TIP can help with leaners.

Definitely consider being in the side.

Expect the limb to stand up fast when releasing the end of the limb... don't get hit with it. You may end up lower than it, and if not expecting that, under it.
 
Expect the limb to stand up fast when releasing the end of the limb...
Yes, fast, as much as in a whiplash, depending of plenty of factors as usual, but it can be bad if you are on the way or just even don't expect it. If you are speeding for a quick cut, that can throw your running chainsaw in the air like a kickback. Brittle woods are the worst : no dampening, no progressivity, you get the full effect of the spring's release.
 
If all the limbs are removed as you get toward the tip, there will be little to no dampening when removing the tip.

Leaving laterals, then removing the tip can greatly dampen the releasing of the tip, much like leaving a few branches on a spindly tree being topped.

If I have a spindly, slow-tapering conifer, and leave 2 limbs at the topping point (and/ or a few along the trunk), and top it, it is much less reactive. Once the two limbs are removed from the topping point, and there is a bare stem, it's much wigglier.
 
Ordered a 355T this morning, and I'm sitting at work trying to figure out what I'm gonna do today. It's kind of raining, but it's an ambiguous kind of rain where you aren't sure if it'll really rain or not. I have a job that needs to get done, but we can't work in the rain, so go or not?

I wanted the 355 powerhead only, but they don't really come like that, so I got the 14" bar. The downside of not being a sawshop. You take things as-shipped or not.
 
Popped awake & felt rested so did all the dishes (there were plenty), then sat out on the porch with a cup of hot broth & saw a falling star, or space junk burn up.

Now sitting here playing fiddle again and it's not quite 4 am yet....My clock might be all messed up, but life is good! :lol:
 
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This is the second Sunday morning in a row that I haven’t had power at the house. Hooking the genny up seems to be my new Saturday night thing. Anyhow the sun is shining and it’s beautiful outside. Only 32*F but the sun brings hope that it will be a great day. Think I’ll see if the kids want to go on a search and recovery mission to retrieve their missing trampoline😆
Hope everyone else is hav g a great morning
 
Power flickered last night. One computer reset, but it stayed up. I made a quick scan of the property this morning, and surprisingly, no damage. A small dead locust branch looks like about it, but I wasn't thorough. A little chilly in a Tshirt. A couple pines went down at work. If the boss wants me to deal with them, he'll have to ask.
 
Looked at some trees for a buddy this morning. The poplar is intimidating. There's powerlines across the road so any flops would have to be topped first. It's a ton of work as a whole so we talked about doing the stem on the right this year. Should be able to rig all that out towards the road. To be continued...

We're gonna start with some easier stuff first. The dying Lombardys in the background of the poplar pic I can flop parallel with those powerlines on that side and the maple which is more indicative of my usual fare can get flopped out into the road and not reach the lines on that side.
Gonna let it dry up some more first but I am pumped for some treework!

popres.jpg popres2.jpg mapres.jpg
 
This guy from the above post phoned me, says he's worried about the wind, am I comfortable doing the poplar stem over the house, should he call a bucket truck? I said I could do it but it will still be a month or 2 before my shoulder is ready and I wouldn't want him to wait and worry in the meantime. It hurt my ego to pass on the challenge but I couldn't rightly recommend him to wait for me and not hire an insured tree service. I still have the lombardies and maple to do which should fill my desire to do tree work without risking any property damage.
 
Just a lovely pissing rain morning here. I was out at 7:00 am moving brush off a parking lot with the mini. One of our employees was supposed to clean it up for his community service but never showed. I was right in guessing he wouldn’t. So I did that, went home, changed clothes, and headed back over for the open house at the FD. They made a great breakfast for everyone. Donations of course were appreciated. I’ve been busy texting all the neighbors who didn’t show up. Having the official dedication ceremony for the new truck at 11:00. Rain should be done by then.
 
For those of you on the edge of your seat about the above trees that I keep talking about but haven't cut, here's another update: I had my 81 year old dad on board to go knock the five lombardies down tomorrow. The homeowner calls me this morning to put the job on hold. The maple and the big poplar are on city property which they are only going to trim to "preserve" the trees (which means they don't want to spend $ IMO). The lombardy on the corner is also on city property and they are going to come back out and re-measure the frontage to see if the rest of the lombardies are city property as well. This would've been the first tree to go but now it'll be in the way for me to flop the rest.

Kind of bummed but I went there and did a re-assessment yesterday and the lombardies have 15-20' of dead stick above and almost touching the inside of the 3 phase. I'm inventing scenarios in my head of having a top break off on the push-over and cross the 3 phase or spike me and dad to the ground. It would take some really rammy pushing to happen but my imagination likes to go over these possibilities.

Unfortunately I'm still talking and not cutting.
 
I was talking to Mike about that yesterday. Thinking of all the ways things can go wrong keeps you from doing it, and when you do it, it's with less comfort and certainty, so it ends up being more likely one of the bad things will happen.

Any way you can get the high dead stuff down before felling?
 
Not without a lift. I'm sure it would be fine with a gentle steady push but I usually consider worst case things if given enough time.
 
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