How'd it go today?

[treebilly]

Looked at some crane work this morning then drove over an hour away to look at a 37 removal &157 clearance and hazard prunes for a mobile home community. Best part is they need it done by Monday😆. Boss is turning the price in right now and they have to respond before the end of the workday or it’s voided. I imagine the day rate is through the roof on this one. I’m sitting in hell I mean the BMV trying to figure out why I got a letter saying my license is invalid

 

[pigwot]

The DMV is hell... Back when I was 17 I got a letter asking me to turn in my license, and "by the way, how did I evade notice until I had raked up 19 points, anyway?"

First interview was supposed to be when you 'earned' six points, and at ten points they took your license.

I went to the appointment, and told Mr Burritt, the interviewer, that as far as I knew I had a single, 1-point warning for "failure to give right-of-way". When I described the incident: a State Police officer, without lights on, at a fair distance away, pulled me over and stated that he had to 'slow' from his well-over-the-speed-limit pace when I entered a four-lane roadway, when there was no one in the left, high-speed lane, got annoyed at my questioning 'him', and wrote me a 'warning'.

I then told Mr Burritt that my question to that officer was "What emergency were you heading to at such a high rate of speed, that it turns out you could forget about when my old, slow little Volvo entered the slow lane of your big, wide, empty roadway?" (yes, there was sass in my voice!)

Mr Burritt made a phone call, verified I only had the one point, expunged it from my record, made a note of the officers name, and then sat back and asked how I felt my father's team at the university would fare that season.

I hope your run-in with DMV is as easily resolved!

 

[treebilly]

They couldn’t figure it out either. After running my license and checking the files there is no record of the letter being sent out. And they wonder why I don’t trust govt agencies. They copied it and told me if I get anymore notices to let them know immediately. The people in there could tell I was almost as agitated as relieved with the situation. We shall see what the mail brings.
To add to todays enjoyment I found out that my ISA exam is the Friday before Labor Day. Usually I have that day off. Works out good because the crane goes in the previous week for its annual and the week after that I’ll be in a hotel doing the prep course and testing. Then I’m getting the Tuesday off after the holiday instead of that Friday.
Also found out that my boss is giving me VIP passes to Neon Nights in August. Alabama is headlining Friday evening and Hank Jr the next. I know the wife and I will enjoy both nights.
Now I’m getting ready to hit the firewood pile again. Gonna be all cleaned up by the end of the month. Whatever I don’t get done is going in a big fire just so I can say I got it done

 

[flushcut]

I got a text from our renter saying there is water in the basement this morning. Water heater is toast, got that replaced. While we were sitting around waiting on a call from the installers that would be calling today, sometime, we broke down some logs into blocks for the splitter.

 

[lxskllr]

Big storms today. My locusts lost a few big limbs. Got a hole in my roof when a stub punched through(wrath of Butch)...



Patched it with a cookie tin lid...

Went over to Treeaddict's place later and did some cutting in his neighborhood. They got hit pretty hard. On the way home I turned down a road in my neighborbood, and there was a tree fallen over wires, and blocking the road. First thought was " I could cut that out" second thought was " You could get your dumb ass electrocuted", so I went around the block.

 

[Treeaddict]

Pretty sure we had a tornado about a block away. Never seen anything like this before. So so many trees downed or with massive limbs ripped off. These were good and healthy trees mostly. Spent the evening helping out around my neighborhood. Didn’t tackle the tree over the power lines blocking the road either. Not my expertise. Going to have a lot of cleanup type work over the next few months. Got 2 saws stuck about 4” apart🤣. Power is out and who knows when it’s coming back on. Thanks for your help John!

 

[Jonny]

Looks like it’ll hold up for a little while.

Bummer, hopefully nobody got hurt when shit was flying.

 

[Treeaddict]

No reports of injuries or worse. A few houses crushed

 

[Fiddler]

Checked my sod repair where we dug up the tile/sprinklers. I was super pleased I only had to add/spread a little sand in the cracks between pieces. Watering & tamping must have worked well...normally need to lift a few pieces pieces and fill in under them.

Have an appointment tomorrow morning (Dash dog is getting "fixed"), so going back in tonight to get a head start on tomorrow.

Been a great season so far: most things going smoothly, place is looking good, and managing to knock a little job out every day or two that the boss needs help with on top of my regular jobs.

 

[Treeaddict]

Walking around I found tons more damage in my neighborhood. The root plates of 3 trees went over together. Massive hole left. A pro arb friend said he has 15 estimates today for storm cleanup. Still no power in the neighborhood and the large tree is still laying across the road on the lines. Lots to clean up around here. No fatalities at least.

 

[lxskllr]

Bummer you still don't have power. Hopefully it won't be too long.

Saw a lot of destruction on my way in to work. One section of road was closed with a tree+wires in the road. Still there on my way home. There's a lot to get to.

 

[Treeaddict]

It got me thinking…. Tree falls from private property across county road and into power lines. Who takes care of the tree? Who gets billed? Now for the stupid question: Must power always be off when working on the downed tree touching the lines?

 

[Tree09]

Linemen make it safe, then dot will remove it from the road. It's paid for by your utility bill and taxes respectively.

 

[Treeaddict]

Thanks Kyle!

 

[Burnham]

And the trans department generally will only remove back to clear the travel way for safe transit. The rest of the cleanup is on the property owners.

 

[flushcut]

Three cottonwood deadwood’s. Stinky!

 

[cory]

Big Damage! Stay safe and cha ching.

 

[Fiddler]

Any places I've worked (KY, IN, MI), a utility line tree crew (rubber glove certified) would be called first to clear trees from line once line crew is on sight and has inspected lines. DOT then clears road. They were usually present and did great at protecting our work zone from traffic etc. until we had things cleared for them. Different municipalities treat clean-up differently. City of Midland MI for instance would come around with large equipment and take anything you can get to the road edge. On smaller jobs like pictured, Most places leave it up to the home owners to take care of though. Things the size of hurricane damage & such usually have large dump/drop-off sites provided by local gov't.

 

[Patrick A]

Field clean up after dropping some decent sized oaks and maples. Next step is stump excavation. I am curious how long it will take.

 

[SeanKroll]

If you're digging it out, i would think you might cut the bark down below when you will machine-handle a short 'spar' to use as a lever. I think this would keep the bark intact where you would eventually cut the stump from any trunk wood, preserving your chain.

Side note: @cory 's stumping/ dirty cutting technique works a treat for preserving sharpness.

Using a fulcrum (large round or otherwise) near the base of the tree to pivot the trunk-lever over, can help rip the stump out.

RopeShield, on TB, did this with with a large tree, cutting roots, a huge M:A with a dyneema rope and winch of some sort, possibly manual.





What do you have for stump removal?

Do oaks tend to have deeper roots, as drier root zone species?

 

[lxskllr]

Backup your computers! At least three copies. My main data drive failed yesterday, and my last backup was some time early last year I think. Been screwing with my machine since early evening yesterday. Couldn't even get it to boot. I *just* now figured it was hanging on the old drive cause I had it in fstab to mount at startup. No drive, no startup.

Computer's running, but I need to figure out what I lost. This sucks. I've been telling myself for awhile to run a backup, and I said "I'll get it later", but later didn't come soon enough :^(

edit:
Digging through logs, and it looks like my last backup was Nov last year. More recently than I remembered. I'll take what I can get...

 

[Patrick A]

If you're digging it out, i would think you might cut the bark down below when you will machine-handle a short 'spar' to use as a lever. I think this would keep the bark intact where you would eventually cut the stump from any trunk wood, preserving your chain.

Side note: @cory 's stumping/ dirty cutting technique works a treat for preserving sharpness.

Using a fulcrum (large round or otherwise) near the base of the tree to pivot the trunk-lever over, can help rip the stump out.

RopeShield, on TB, did this with with a large tree, cutting roots, a huge M:A with a dyneema rope and winch of some sort, possibly manual.


This thing.



What do you have for stump removal?

Do oaks tend to have deeper roots, as drier root zone species?

 

[cory]

kubota FTW

 

[Patrick A]

kubota FTW

Just passed its first 10 hours. Amazed by the level of noise. I typically wear foam plugs and muffs on diesel equipment. I do not use any on this so far.

 

[Treeaddict]

What’s this special stump cut Cory? That’s always my last cut because I know what’s going to happen.