How'd it go today?

[canadiantreeman]

Climbed a big ol fir tree this AM, you know...for fun. And then spent the rest of the day hanging out with the family. I also battled with a strange electrical circuit, in order to replace a light fixture in my kitchen. Damn thing took me 3 hours, and I had to phone a friend. Got er figured though. Damn 'lectricity.

 

[Fiddler]

Don't feel too bad, when I changed my kitchen light I found out all the first floor lights and the entire second floor of the house all were hooked to it (two hot wires and two three way switches to boot). I had to have my electrically suave friend come and stay for two days.

 

[Dave Shepard]

Had five cows that didn't show up for milking this morning. My mother and sister went looking for them and found them under a tree, ten toes up, so to speak. They must have gotten nailed in the bad thunderstorm last night.

 

[Stumper]

Expensive storm Dave!

 

[woodworkingboy]

Wow! Sorry for the cows, and that must not have been a very pleasant sight for your mom and sister.

 

[NeTree]

That blows.

 

[Burnham]

I actually witnessed a lightning strike on a group of four horses in a pasture, from only 200 feet away. All four knocked to the ground, three struggled to their feet and the last stayed dead. It was awful.

 

[Al Smith]

Up came a big storm ,completely out of the blue .My daughter had a bunch of ducks with a little swimming pool in their pen .A big bolt hit the ground and that duck in the pool was tossed 15 feet in the air,feathers flew .I'll be damned if after about 5 minutes of being knocked out cold it just shook it's head and waddled off .Never before or since have I seen anything like that .

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Dang Dave

Pruned a couple little live oaks today and mistletoe out of a black oak that sucked with a 1/2 life to climb. Just plugged my way through it and rapped out. If she wants it dead wooded... it's gonna cost her.

She wants me to butcher a couple more trees. I'll see if I can at least get her to meet me on a proper prune and not top the one fugger. See what happens.

 

[Fiddler]

Moved a bunch of the wife's stuff out to the garage, raised some of the the canopy in my East yard and cut a bunch of brush and a few leaners out of the way. Read a bit of geography text. Got a lot organized today.

Oh yeah, put a couple hours in on the Banjo...

 

[stehansen]

Dang Dave.
I tried to sharpen some greenteeth without much success. Roughed out a couple of bowls from Saturday's black walnut.

 

[sotc]

Guys did a nice little pruning job and I ran nearly non stop looking at work. Got close to a grand lined up in spraying tomorow and near that in pruning for the guys. Feast or famine, no such thing as nice and steady

 

[Al Smith]

They changed by schedual around so I worked today with the next two off .Maybe finish splitting the 3 cords of basswood and if time allows drop a big dead ash .It's a dandy probabely close to a thousand board feet .At least 50 plus feet of clear log .

 

[rskybiz]

rskybiz- do you still have the sling? Can you send it to me for evaluation? I'd like to analyze the splice to see if it is a bad splice, bad rope, or something else that was the issue. Did you make the sling yourself? If not, where'd you get it? This is a pretty big deal.

I'll PM you about it.

love
nick

It's headed your way, in the am. Please share results with the house and some close ups as I cant seem to get a good shot of it.
And to top the cake for me I got a lil shot of primary buzz from a pecan branch thanks to incompetent ground help who could not seem to follow instructions
Got the nicest of pecan log though
Thanks Nick

 

[SouthSoundTree]

Dropped a couple of dying lombardi poplars. Hadn't felled any of those before. Nothing fancy. Gotta love having a chipper with winch and tractor for disposal, though!



Who wedges over their own trees, and who has somebody pound while they cut?

At Parks, we tend to pound while the other cuts, which I'm not much of a fan of doing. You can't feel the resistance of the tree you're cutting, and the there is more to communicate. When working for myself, I always wedge my own. It was a little strange change-up from working on my own over the weekend that resulted in a minor screw-up, and a small parking lot crabapple getting smashed. My fault, but I would have avoided it had I been wedging on my own. It was a learning experience in team cutting.

I remember now that Burnham posted some hazard pictures on big trees where the team of 2 seasoned guys were cutting and wedging together.

Preferences?


Time to get getting, off to the job, 6 am will be here any minute or twenty.

 

[Al Smith]

Got the nicest of pecan log though

Speaking of which,my wifes cousin just built a house near Montgomery Ala .As it turned out they have about 50 pecan trees from an old pecan orchard,grove or whatever they call them .

I really can't understand how a hickory grows this far north but no pecans and vica versa when they are of the same family .From what they say a pecan is harder than a shag bark .Now that's hard .

 

[NeTree]

On bigger trees, I'll have someone pound while I cut. But I tend to work with people I don't need to communicate with; we just know.

 

[Burnham]

I've done it both ways. I generally prefer to handle it solo, and for the vast majority of the felling I do that's how it is...but sometimes it's nice to have a second, if they are experienced and I'm familiar with working with them. Otherwise, no thanks .

 

[stig]

I don't care for having someone bang at wedges while I'm running the saw. Too much chance of getting hit by a falling branch.

But for raising sound beech trees, where there is no chance of anything breaking loose and coming down, nothing beats being two guys and alternating on the wedges.

When you wedge a tree, you set up an occilation that makes the tree move forward and settle back between the hits on the wedge.
On oak and conifers that can break stuff loose, which is why you should alternate your rythm a little .
When two fallers hit from opposite sides, instead of getting that "move forward, settle back" occilation in the tree, the hits come so close to each other that the tree never gets to settle back, but keeps going forward.
This again means that there is a lot less resistance against the wedges so the whole process goes way easier.

We normally say that two guys wedging can raise a tree 4 times as fast as one guy.

Did I explain that in a way that is understandable?

 

[Al Smith]

.

When you wedge a tree, you set up an occilation that makes the tree move forward and settle back between the hits on the wedge.
On oak and conifers that can break stuff loose, Did I explain that in a way that is understandable?[/QUOTE] Yes ! Having known that already is the reason I'm going to power over a big dead oak I have back in my woods rather than get thumped with a 100 pound limb in the noggin from driving wedges .Lawdy that would drive my head down to about my belly button .I'd look stupid being 3 feet tall --and probabley 6 feet around .

 

[Burnham]

You bet, Stig...perfect explanation.

I always recommend arythmic wedge driving technique. Hit a few whacks out of pattern, then let the occilation die out before a few more. Vitally important with weaked tops.

 

[Al Smith]

Fiddled around .a little here,a little there and got all but a few pieces split of 3 cords of basswood .Lousey stuff but I did it for my wifes cousin who has a bad back .

You'd think as light as it is it would splt up good ,wrong .I'd rather do oak I think as that stuff .

 

[Fiddler]

Today I pointed at some brush and then pointed at the pile it should go toward (with my nephew dragging it). moved a couple things around in the house to organize. That's about it other than spending the entire day and night 'til two in the morning picking banjo.

i'm going to miss vacation when school starts next week.

 

[Al Smith]

I didn't do much today but I did take a little walk through the 3.5 acres of woods next to me .

I got permission from the old lady that owns it to cut any dead or hazard tree .In fact I'm trying to buy it .

At any rate there's so many dead ash in that thing I don't think I'll get them all by the time the snow flies .I've got about a month of vacation to burn up by Dec. so I'll just take a couple weeks in Nov .and pretend I'm a faller .

 

[Stumper]

Al, I met a feller who pretended to be a faller. -Said he was a smart faller but turned out he wasn't even a fart smeller.