How'd it go today?

I finally got that tree at work. Before...

20210304_141517.jpg After...

20210304_163014.jpg

Not much of a job. I could have used a ladder/freeclimbed without making it a youtube spectacle, but hey, why pass up a chance to get on rope? I wanted to try a valdotain, but right away wasn't thrilled, so I made one braid, and that worked /ok/, but I'm still undecided. My ropes got jammed up with each other, and that caused the hitch not to grab a couple times. Not a big deal, but not cool either. Made me lose hard won progress up the rope. When it worked, it worked well though. Gonna have to give my setup a bit of thought. I'm also out of shape (in general), but from winter especially. Boss wants low branches on a pin oak trimmed, so I'll have another gig(this time paying) soon. Also eying up a fir that has a cavity a woodpecker's been working on. Might do that too. That would be a complete removal...

20210304_074556.jpg

Pretty good day.
 
lxskllr said:
I finally got that tree at work. Before...

View attachment 108686After...

View attachment 108687

Not much of a job. I could have used a ladder/freeclimbed without making it a youtube spectacle, but hey, why pass up a chance to get on rope? I wanted to try a valdotain, but right away wasn't thrilled, so I made one braid, and that worked /ok/, but I'm still undecided. My ropes got jammed up with each other, and that caused the hitch not to grab a couple times. Not a big deal, but not cool either. Made me lose hard won progress up the rope. When it worked, it worked well though. Gonna have to give my setup a bit of thought. I'm also out of shape (in general), but from winter especially. Boss wants low branches on a pin oak trimmed, so I'll have another gig(this time paying) soon. Also eying up a fir that has a cavity a woodpecker's been working on. Might do that too. That would be a complete removal...

View attachment 108688

Pretty good day.
Click to expand...
Looks good!

What kinda fir?

A valdotain and valdotain tresse VT are different animals.

Often VTs have several wraps and braids.

I don't climb on one, typically.

IIRC, some like a 4/3, four wraps, 3 braids, alternating the legs as to under/ over, from one braid to the next braid, to the next braid.
 
I don't know what kind of fir. Any ideas?

Yea, I started with a straight valdotain. I had already preknotted my rope, and didn't want to play around adjusting knots, so I added a braid making it a VT. I think a shorter cord would have worked with the valdotain, but adding a single braid worked ok too. I usually use an old school prusik loop, and it works really well, but with a hitchclimber, it loads the biner on one side. It works fine, but the asymmetry bothers me.

I'm gonna play around with the setup, and see if I can make a loop balanced on the biner. The V(T) has potential problems with my setup as noted above. It's virtually impossible for a loop prusik to behave the same way, and I prefer it anyway. The VT worked well when it worked, but I can't say it was any better than loop, at least for my brief climb.
 
flushcut said:
Roads have been posted so I'm shut down. Hopefully in two weeks.
Click to expand...

Is this the typical time of year they get shut down or does it vary a lot? What trucks are banned, anything above a pickup?
 
They're not! Here are some fun facts:
"Brazilian pepper (Schinus terebinthifolius) is a shrub or small tree which can grow up to 40 feet. Brazilian pepper is considered a Category I invasive plant by the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council, and is one of the most aggressive invasive exotic plants in Florida infesting over 700,000 acres. Its dense canopy shades out other native species, and it invades the aquatic and terrestrial habitats of the wildlife that depend on the land and water for their survival. If you crush a leaf of the Brazilian pepper, it smells peppery or like turpentine, but be careful since it is a relative of the poison ivy family, and therefore, its sap can cause an allergic reaction." ~Sanibel Captiva Island Reporter
 
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Seems like invasive stuff is never good. It's never tasty food, or benign pretty flowers. It's always ZOMG, this stuff's gonna take over the world!!! Closest thing to good I can think of is wineberries. They probably do something bad, but I like having them on my property. The berries are good.
 
It doesn't strike me as a spruce, but I'm pretty bad IDing conifers. I'm pretty sure the "pines" I cleaned up next to the office are hemlocks, but they're different than the hemlock I have in my front yard. I dunno. White pine, ERC, and yard spruces are the only conifers I'm fairly certain of. Oh, and I guess dawn redwood and bald cypress, but even that's recent. A couple years ago I was puzzling over the knees the "dawn redwoods" at work got. I didn't think they got them. Turns out they don't :^D I couldn't tell them apart from a distance, but if I can see the needles or the knees I can.
 
cory said:
Is this the typical time of year they get shut down or does it vary a lot? What trucks are banned, anything above a pickup?
Click to expand...
Yes it is the norm, Anything 8 tons or over, plated or actual weight. With the way spring is rolling in hard and fast two weeks is my guess. They are talking 60's next week.
 
43DDDA1E-AAD0-496B-BF94-F63F0EA34F5E.jpeg

My ‘third’ third...
As far as I know there is no way to know when the appointed hour was set for our birth into this world, and no way to know that ultimate moment when we’ll leave this life.
At this point in our evolution we tend to live until we are here some sixty, seventy, eighty, perhaps ninety years.
In my mind I have come to see my time here as roughly divided into ‘thirds’:

1. From my earliest sense of awareness until my 25th birthday, upon which the realization that I had ‘been alive’ for a quarter century hit me like that proverbial ton of bricks.
2. From twenty-six through about 40 - years when life was a blur of relations and children!!
3. Today. I turn 65; Medicare; retiring mannerisms, if not total retirement; I have entered the third ‘third’ of my time here.

The French have a word “denouement” (forgive me if I misspelled it, I took Spanish). My understanding of the term is a gradual resolution, say perhaps of the plot in a novel after the climactic main scene or event has occurred.

That idea doesn’t yet seem to fit where I am at this point in my life (other than the attendant aging-related aches and pains) and I jokingly say to those wishing me well on this milestone birthday, “Well, I might be 65 now, but at least my level of maturity got stuck at age 29”!!

I could use a shot of lubricant in my major joints, but otherwise let’s get on with it!! Here’s to the next milestone: 99?!?
 
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