Had a good day today.
Went 53 miles south to reconnoiter (for 2nd time) the 145 tree job at a nat'l guard site near Tacoma. Took Eli to help do the cruise...if we land the job, he'll be a sub. I'll need another certified arborist (2 of the 3 other climbers that I can bring in used to be certified but let it lapse.) Specs also stipulate no spurs for pruning, and no bucket trucks on the lawn (which some other bidders might try to circumvent in their bid....) Think we have a good chance of scoring the job. With our talent, no one else could do the job as fast, I'm thinking. Trying to bid it competitively and still make $.
Then, there's a bad ass poplar removal that some yahoo landed, but doesn't know how to do. My consulting arborist buds were concerned about this guy's abilities, and referred the client to me. He called me right away. This yahoo wanted to crane everything when there's no real way to do it. The crane co told me what they had planned, but they didn't think it would work..and they also realized he was clueless.....He'd bid $12k, but his crane costs, if the job would even go down, would be $4500-$7000, and wood removal up to $2500. I'm gonna bid about $16000 plus or minus $1500, but will only need my regular crane guy for the wood. He has a rented 28 ton with narrow spread for the back outriggers (needed due to space between the houses being 20 feet or so)....plenty of room for the front outriggers.
Remember my story of him tipping his 23 tonner over? Well, I found out the deal. He asked the homeowner where the septic tank was..turned out the fool didn''t know. Anyhow, Mike had already picked 5 trees, when the crane punched through and tipped over fast. Mike could have been crushed when it tipped, but he fell into the septic tank......pppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuuuuuwwwwwwwwwwww, ,, but better stinky as all get out than dead, huh??
Now he has a sharpened long piece of rebar and a mallet...to check out the ground......
Anyhow, speaking of poplars, we're removing two tomorrow, 100 footers or so...
To finish the day off with the first real work, we left at 5:30pm to drive 30 minutes to remove an 18 incher, maybe 60 feet tall, that had tipped halfway over in Dec 2006 storm.....no good trees to rig out of, but we guyed it back to a maple in a neighbors yard, and supported it with the GRCS. Climbed a small leyland, swung over to attach the guy line, then limbed it....my lifeline was crotched 20 feet below me, when I popped a 3 inch top into another leyland, trying to make it land in the neighbor's wild area and clear a chain link fence. Mickey got it out with a throw line. Chunked it down, hid the last 20 feet of wood in two different neighbor's blackberries, to save hauling it up a circuitous steep path, as we did with the rest of the tree. We were there about 110 minutes..not bad for $900.....
Got home at 8:45, cooked the last half of that awesome fresh wild Alaska silver salmon....along with some great rice and herbs, with added garlic chunks, and a beer....Oh yeah!!! Enough left for my 5th, 6th and maybe 7th meal from it....
and, if they're still some in the store, I'll buy anuddr one!
and, trying to solve some puter issues with ad-aware, and spybot...and maybe a registry cleaner---if I can't find a good free one, might have to buy...any tips, ya nerds?
)
......all is well?
