How'd it go today?

Last minute call today to remove some nice sized hangers from over a hosts RV at a campground on the Merced river. Guy called me on the way out the door and we hitched up the chipper and boogied. Rigged it all out, got paid, chipped a pile and looked at a day camp ground that needed chipped out for an estimate. I guess California Land Management left the guy in a lurch and told him to just hire someone. Their chipper is tied up with all the shat loads of clean up from the winter storms. Referring this one out as I am pretty much booked up right now and this needs done pronto. A forestry truck, chipper and crew would serve the guy better as there are hazards over almost every BBQ area. Hard to communicate over the sound of the river though. Nice I could look down and there it was :)
 

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I was sick today, have the flu so I put finishing a large camphor removal off until tomorrow.
 
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New work lights on the isuzu.
 
Went to pick up our Parks skidder. A Garrett (as in the late Garrett Enumclaw, as in Enumclaw, WA, for the Washingtonians) Model 16, made back in 1967. Articulated, weighs about 12K, full time all-wheel drive, 13K pound winch. Runs well, especially for its age. I drove it around the parking lot a bit to get used to it. Kind of a beast.
 
Well, haven't seen it in action yet. We have a 3'+ WR cedar, failed, cracked, and leaning, and being held up by a biggun' DFir that has "Garrett's" name on it. That will be after we have some time to service it a bit, and the trail dries out a bit, and we have the time. Not exactly a soft footprint. Should be a step up from a small/ medium tractor for moving logs. Maybe a hair more power than a mini, but doesn't fit in a 36" gate at 8.5' wide.
 
Did a super fast takedown today.

30" dbh horsechestnut with 3 stems, almost everything had to be roped down.

I climbed, Richard ran the ropes, HO and son dragged brush.

2 hours and we had it on the ground and the firewood cut to lengths.

Man, we were smoking!!!!

Then we went out and planted 3000 trees.

Pretty productive day for a couple of non-ninjas:lol:
 
I wrapped up the large camphor removal, a large laurel oak removal, and cleared 4 trees from a couple service drops.
 
Looked at a customer's storm damaged bigleaf maple which had an included union fail onto the neighbor's house. A couple of arborists...ummm...loggers were there to remove it. When I was talking to the neighbor on the phone a little while earlier, he said his "general contractor had some arb...arrabist, what is it you call yourselves?"

I said I'm a certified arborist.

"the general contractor has some arborists on their way from Shelton (neighboring logging town)"

So while I was looking at the "what to do with the damaged tree once the Arbologgers are done" I learned that a compression fork/ included bark crotch, commonplace on bigleaf maple, is a "spike top", and its where trunk is trying to become a new top. That's where you get the water and bugs.


It had very little decay at the 14" wide rams horns. No insect damage. A bad fork, increasing weight from flowers/ foliage/ rain, and I'm guessing sap flow.



I hope the guys got the trunk off, house tarped, and all went home safely. Seemed like they'd accomplished 15 minutes of work in two hours by the time I left. They were doing a lot of figuring for something reasonably straight-forward if you can set rigging in the tree higher than ladder reach, without spikes. We had some heavy rain about 3 hours after I left.



Dropped a small pine before some excavation work tomorrow for a repeat customer. She has a motorcycle, basketball hoop, chainsaw, and yes, girlfriend. Liz asked me to drop this tree because since she fell a tree on the house, she's not allowed to cut any more trees near the house. They live in an annosus root disease pocket with lots of second or third growth trees. History of a lot of hemlock failures, and I'd removed some that were leaning toward her house previously. On the way out of a $75 notch, limb, buck, no clean-up job, I see a 100' hemlock, 3' on the butt, with a ground level cavity and dead section across 1/3 the circumference. Hopefully, I can get that job.
 
Slayed weeds today, probably almost 2 acres and the dang HO's left before we finished. I am going to be over in that neighborhood tomorrow, so I can get paid on my way by. Just hate leaving this one as there is always "one more thing" or can we "push out the clearance a tad further" every year. They give me shat loads of referral work so I like to keep them happy. I just don't like having to stop by to quickly touch up something. They pay extra for the extra, I just like to have no loose ends when I leave a place. Came home and fixed another brusher/weed whacker and tuned it up a notch. :/: Tested it on about 2 sides of 200 plus feet of driveway. SO three of us tomorrow hammering grasses. Still waiting on parts for the Stihls. Should have at least one rebuilt by the middle of next week. Ordering some parts for the DR as I broke the locking differential cable last job it was on :roll: Needs a new tranny brake cable anyway...
Guess I better get on my paperwork......
 
Hauled 2 loads of logs off a job that got rained out last week, then spent the rest of the day fixing the ruts that the bobcat made due to the rain. I would have waited to do the job, but the tree (ash) was fixing to fall on the neighbors house and shed for the second time. The first time was a big limb that went thru the roof. Have to prune 5 bradfords, and 2 oaks tomorrow and then I am off to a birthday party for a 1 year old. Yall have a great night !
 
I had an easy day, killed two pines but get this - this fellow banks at the same place as me, so he had the money deposited directly into my checking account. That was sweet!
 
I took down a dead Ash and two declining Ash's a few houses down from yesterdays job. Worked out nice as I was able to leave the gear there after yesterday's Elm, and drive back empty as he keeps the wood and chips every time I work there. Home by 1:00 and I got my bike ready for tomorrow's ride in Southwick, MA. Hope it doesn't rain.
 
mundane maintenance work today, volunteer day at the home front tomorrow, got some plants for the blue hair brigade to plant around the strata, should be fun. That and a few errands while gramma watches the little guy for a while. :)
 
A bunch of trimming in Maitland. Brian stopped by for a few, he missed the customer change the job to more aggressive hacking. Hey Brian, did you manage to snap a few pics?
 
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