I mentioned this job in a "how'd it go today" post. Here's the illustrated and less verbose version.
I went to Cleveland to do a large tree job for my uncle Gary. I was going in blind, having never seen his house, all I had were some pictures he had sent. We had a ton of work to do on thursday while the power line was dropped, about 3 days total. I'll try to keep the descriptions short.
Day one, started about 330 PM after driving all day. This maple leaned over the garage, had my dad lowering branches to the roof and then throwing them down to the driveway.
View attachment 64861
I have a few video clips, but they are too big to upload. . .
Maybe when I find some more time I'll figure out how to get them on here, maybe through youtube or something.
Day 2 (Thursday) EAB damaged ash, judged still live enough to climb, rigged everything off the big oak to avoid shock loading the ash.
Approx. 80ft Oak, limbs reaching over the roof - some almost to the chimney, over the neighboring maple, etc.
I dropped the trunk late afternoon
Aubry, the other tree guy working with us did these
Before I started working on the oak trunk, we saved Aubry from this one, he misjudged the top and it sat on the saw (MY saw, btw) during the back cut. Dad and I put a line in high with the big shot and pulled the top with the throwline, he was very grateful for the save.
Then Aubry stripped this one and topped it just after sunset, I used my headlamp to give him at least a little light as he cut it. Then I dropped the trunk, in the dark, by headlamp. It was a scramble to get the last "line clearance" trees done and the brush cleaned up as the power company was coming back the next morning to hook it back up, and they stated clearly that they WOULD NOT work though brush.
That night (no power in the house) we all went to my OTHER uncle's house (Paul) for dinner and socializing. We didn't get there till 8, still had a wonderful good time, enjoyed lots of Sam Adam's Oktoberfest. Friday morning we were back at it. I was setting up rigging gear in this leaning co-dom, talking Aubry through everything I was doing using the com helmets (sharing the knowledge, paying it forward) and had just told him to trust his instincts and back off if something doesn't feel right when the effects of last night's Oktoberfests hit me and I decided to get out of the tree. As we ate lunch we concluded this one could wait till saturday
There was still plenty to do, like this dead one behind the garage, leaning toward the garage. It was actually kinda neat as we got permission to set a guy line in the neighbor's tree to make sure it didn't go into the garage if the hinge broke early, and it turned out to have enough good wood in the trunk that the hinge held. The guy line went slack as it fell, which I did not expect.
Saturday I got that last leaner on the ground, had to rig all but 1 or 2 branches since it was so close to the garage windows. I knew I could drop them clean, but one bad bounce was all it would need, so they got tied and lowered. Then I went to ride for a few hours at Rays MTB while the rest of the crew finished making this brush pile wall out front
That pile is almost 6ft tall and runs the entire width of their yard. The township picks up as much brush as you want to put at the curb, every Thrusday, as long as it is cut to 4ft lengths. When asked to schedule an extra pick up due to the volume they politely said, "sure, we're scheduled to come out on THURSDAY."
We drove by another crew in the area doing a big removal, I would've like to stop and chat with them for a bit but we did not have time. Anybody in cleveland working in the heights area (within walking distance of Lee st) with green kask helmets a few weeks ago?