Alex and I took down the leftover lead of a codom hickory. Another small tree outfit took out the easy side a few months ago...made the famous sloping back cut...no face at all...ripped out and spun some it looks like but they got away with it. They went to do the other side and got spooked. Asked for $500 from the owner and said they would come back to finish the rest. He said he figured they would not come back when they took their blocks, etc. with them...he was right. They did leave a new True Blue rope in the tree. We used that today as our pull line/rigging line. Tree leaned out toward the house. I went up into the skinnies and took the top limb by limb...too much lean to try to throw it all together. The first pict is after taking out the 15-20 feet of the top. Hot hot today...glad to have it done. Owner is a Nam vet...told us the story of how he got wounded (shot 3 times by VC with an M1 carbine...leftover from the French days)..sniper chose him because he was the radioman...first shot took out his right forearm...you can tell muscle is missing but he does OK. Got shot in shoulder and then neck...larynx...has an unusual voice due to that shot. He used his left arm to shoot out a 20 round M-16 magazine (auto) where he saw the leaves blowing out when the sniper shot at him. Killed the sniper...6 of the 20 shots hit the sniper. His buddies were screaming at him to call in an air strike. He got pissed off because he could not key the mike due to the shot up arm and when he finally managed to he could not talk after being shot in the neck. He took his good hand, wiped it in the blood of his shoulder, stuck the hand up in the air and then his buddies realized he needed help...they started screaming for a medic. Medic showed up and it was his very first casualty, ever. Medic said, "oh, man, they creamed you". That pissed him off even more. He was a hoot.
Said they had to use "dynamite" (likely C-4) to make an LZ to medevac him. They put him on the chopper, he looked up and the door gunner had a name on his helmet that said "Frankenstein". He though he was going crazy.
Said he made sargent 3 times...demoted often for fighting and being rowdy. He was packing an auto on his hip all day today. After hearing all his stories I said, "Loren, I really don't think you need that pistol". He got a kick out of that.
Anyway, he was a good guy, did the hard thing back in VN in 1966. It was a 4.5 hour job, we did it for $350...figure he got a veteran's discount.