How'd it go today?

Got off school and went down the street from our house to work on a job with Dad and the crew. We knocked it out in about 4 hours, 2 good sized Pin Oaks, a small Sweet Gum, and a small Spruce removal. I pruned the Sweet Gum and most of the larger Pin Oak. I'm beat right now, since I haven't worked in so long. I didn't think two trees and ground work could do me in that fast, but it did!
 
Lined up a little job this am forgetting all my climbing gear and keys for big trucks were in my pickup at mechanic 2 towns South and I needed to go 2 towns North:dur: Semi small job in decent sized oak. Lets just say climbing on a bowline on a bight is not ideal! But is do able short term
 
We wrecked two pines this morning, was suppose to take all day we were done at noon. Took a long lunch and a slow paced post lunch.

Got home and met up with some new buddies. We did a couple hour mountain bike ride, I'm pretty beat. Grabbed another day at the PT job for tomorrow, but got three calls for work today, so that's a good thing.
 
Took down an ugly dead black oak. Hollow as all get out. Then took another black oak off one side of the same house. One more black oak and two canyon live oaks to go over there. Katy went to school, so I get the kids, and it seems the neighbors kids. Ohhh boy..:P
 
Poor Bubba isn't fairing well with this. He got sent home with homework today, he missed a recess because he didn't do his work, he told the teacher he didn't care. I told him since he got in trouble, no cartoons, no games, just homework and a bath when he got home. Tonight was his night with his cousin and Grandpa, his cousin was playing with a ball he wanted so he bit him!
I'm not much of a parent, I try, but I do good to take care of myself most times, he's really testing me right now!
 
Hang in there Andy. I was driving to work this morning and hit a construction site on the way there and had to wait about 5 minutes or so, I noticed the engine is missing a little while I'm waiting. When I take off it smooths out, when I get to the jobsite I'm hooking up to the dump trailer and a bunch of steam is coming from the exhaust pipe. I drove it to the mechanic's and left it there and borrowed my Dad's pickup.
 
You just can't catch a break can you Steve?

Not sure if I'm getting snowballed or not yet! Bubba got right up this morning, drank all of his milk, odd, and didn't even eat half his breakfast, really odd. I go out for a smoke, come back in and he's in bed saying he's got a tummy ache. He's had a bad cough the last week or so, and when I called the school she said a lot of other kids had gone out with tummy aches and no fever, so it's possible.
I think it's more missing mommy than anything, I hope I'm wrong.
 
Well, I set my new guy loose with the 660 with 36" bar on it bucking up a mother huge birch. Came back 10 minutes later and smoke was coming off the chain. My own damn fault I guess, nothing 20 or so file strokes per tooth couldn't fix.:|:

He says, "Oh was I really hitting the dirt?"

I says, "yah you really were".


We both learned a lesson, he learned not to dull the my razor sharp saws, and I learned not to have him run any of the longer bar/chains.
 
He did feel really bad once I filled him in on what he had done. Sharpening a saw is one thing, keeping a saw sharp is truly the basics. I told him if he'd done that to a smaller or older chain, he'd be starting to learn about the filing part.

That's what I mean about it being hard to find proficient saw people. Alot of people will dull a saw in nearly an instant and then continue trying to 'make' it cut. 1/2 sharp is still actually dull.
 
What about having him practice sharpening until he gets the hang of it. Maybe on his day off if the time isn't available otherwise. It's a good starting point for learning any kind of woodworking activity, tends to start to instill the importance and mental connections between keeping sharp or not....your responsibility to it.
 
Today I want to thank Burnam, Gerry and a few of the PNW guys that have contributed to my felling technique and goody bag.
Head leaners all day on a slippery slope (a lot of straw type grass, like standing on glass). DSC_0584.JPG DSC_0587.JPG DSC_0585.JPG DSC_0586.JPG
Not pretty ... But I hope I will get better at my coos bay... ;) Effective. Thanks again all :)
Just some of the stumps. About 20 trees came down today.
 
Tom and his lady came out last night and gave me my official "Alpine tree service " hat.--about time I've been keeping that stuff running for 12-15 years .:lol:

I did get the new duct work for the addition to be added this weekend .

Sad news my framer who has had health problems now has a cancer of the kidney ,now that sucks ,poor guy . I'll call him tommorrow and get the low down .
 
I cannot abide a dull... or half sharp saw. I'm so rabid about it my guys never get anywhere near putting one in the dirt. I realized that when my worst offender bucked a whole 24" red oak with an 026 and a 16" bar... and the saw still cut like a champ when he brought it back. 8)


OK so I kind of rehabilitated my busted ass PC, quite bit has gone down lately, mostly family stuff, mostly good but a couple of things worthy of note...

I haven't tossed my cookies in over a decade but on Monday I found myself 35' up on nothing but a rope hurling uncontrollably... splattered the end of my lifeline, bummer.

Don't know what happened, I'm still a bit weak. I felt bad on the way up, jittery and timid even though it was an easy prune. It felt like heat exhaustion coming on but it was 10:00AM, I probably overdid the H2O, about 50 ounces in an hour... made for some extra lengthy convulsions. Once I was down I pretty much collapsed on the driveway. I was alone except for the HO, I'm really glad she wasn't looking, she probably would've thought I fell.

Naturally I figured I would work through it, still had two dead ones to put down, hung the second one in a sourwood I thought would bend and let it fall. Dropped it off the stump Daniel style which worked fine but when I did it broke in half and that sourwood catapulted the top right back at the stump. Pretty big wood, it would have killed me almost for certain had I not bugged out. It also landed within a foot or two of a woodshed I had to avoid. I guess that was good luck but it didn't really feel like it at the time.

... the day just wasn't shaping up all that well and it actually got worse.

I went to pickup Bryce in Chapel Hill. When I got there his coach was wrapping his foot and he was bloody. Seems he wanted to try out riding a friend's scooter (a 250cc scooter) and layed it down in a turn. He's kinda chewed up but the foot seems like just a sprain. The scooter's gonna need some work. For me, wrecking a bike is a right of passage I had the privilege to accomplish a few times myself. I've never even been on a scooter though.

So then we went to my girl's volleyball game and they got beat in nail biting heartbreaker of a game. They're one of the best teams in the conference and this was the other 'best' team. They did play all three games though and only lost by two in the tiebreaker. No shit, my girl is the best player on the team, she's really coming into her own now.

On a similar note, She and I are going to be in a pretty cool, kinda artsy parade in mid-October. All homemade yet pretty elaborate costumes and both of us will be on stilts. So she was working on her stilt walking this weekend and after about 20 minuntes she says, "I want to try a hoop.". Ummm, OK, why not? She knows how to fall and she's damn good with a hoop. She did it first try. Second try she kept the hoop going for about 30 seconds. That may not sound like much but on stilts you can't stop marching or you'll fall, so she was marching in place on stilts and hooping. I have video but it's not uploaded yet.

My kids amaze me.
 
Sounds like you should have shut down earlier! Watch that heat, I know all to well how bad it can mess you up!
Glad the kids made it better Chip, but slow down a little, maybe enjoy the weekend early?
 
Ziplined 3 80' pines today...I only set the block, did one and chunked out the spar on which the block was set. I had to do the dumping so Chris climbed...which I was kinda bummed out about, I likes me some rigging. Lots of it today between Chris and I we were up there for a solid 9 hours. Irrigation heads everywhere....hence the low impact removals. 12 hr day, I'm beat.
 
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