What Fieldwork Do You Find Boring?

lxskllr

Treehouser
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I was asbuilting stormwater management today, and thinking "This shit sucks". It's tedious, monotonous, and kills my back when I'm on the gun. Running the stick isn't much better. I guess that would be a subset of topo, and general location. Pretty much no thinking. Just showing what's on the ground. Boring...

I assume most here don't like paperwork. What kind of treework do you dislike doing. Where you showup at a job, and think "Ugh, This day's gonna drag"?
 
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What does that entail? That's not welding brackets for deckpans, is it? That looks boring in a welding context.
 
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That's two votes for hedges. I could see that. The little bit I've done sucks. Is that pretty common for tree companies to do? Seems like it's the landscaper's job.
 
I could get tired of surveying culverts for cleaning needs, when I was working in road maintenance for the USFS.

Drive from one culvert to the next, get out of the truck, look at the inlet and exit for debris, make a note...wash, rinse, repeat. On some road systems the pipes might be only 25 to 30 yards apart...a lot of stopping and climbing in and out of the truck :).

If it was steady rain to boot...not much fun at all :D.

If the weather wasn't bad, I made it work for me by always keeping an eye out for the LBB's in the brush...birding the warblers, kinglets, etc. made the time pass more pleasantly.

I also got into the habit of doing this task on an ATV if the road system was not too busy with traffic. Much less taxing for my then bum hip than climbing in and out of the truck all day. But it still was boring work :).
 
Ditto hedges.
They are 'gap fillers'.
I can do them and do them well, but, I'd rather not.
Ditto palms, except maybe coconuts, at least you get a feed off them and they don't have thorns.
 
Pruning someone's older orchard after they've cut on it for years. Same for topped flowering plums and cherries, though, the ones in front of my customer's house today look amazing in full bloom, 10 years later.

Stump grinding kinda blows. Some satisfaction in getting it ready for replanting.




John, you've mentioned your back before. How is your core strength? How has climbing affected your back pain?
 
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John, you've mentioned your back before. How is your core strength? How has climbing affected your back pain?
My core strength kinda sucks tbh. I usually feel my best during/after climbing. I feel good, and generally have more energy. That's the low key stuff I do. Production climbing, and getting things done as part of a crew? :shrugs: I think I'd probably feel ok, but my strength would have to be upped. I suspect I'd spend a month or so feeling like I was put through a ringer, but my back would probably be ok, with the caveat that weird stuff sometimes happens when dragging stuff on the ground, and doing other routine ground work.
 
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I really like footlocking in an mrs setup. Scrunching up my body, then fully extending feels good. Slower than hell, but it feels good. Thinking on that gif I posted... You ever had a hamster, or some other small rodent, and they get on their wheel, run like hell, then stop to look around at the new scenery, even though they've gone nowhere? That's me footlocking :^D
 
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What do you all do with sawdust, say from a big removal where you're breaking a lot of wood down in-place? Scatter it with a blower?
 
What do you all do with sawdust, say from a big removal where you're breaking a lot of wood down in-place? Scatter it with a blower?
Gets dumped in the truck with the chips. Most of it gets raked up still but it’s more tedious than leaves and twigs. Never get the last few handfuls so yea, leaf blower.

If people want to save some cash, we’ll negotiate to leave everything or leave brush or leave wood. A lot more folks are springing for doing their own cleanup these days.
 
Stump grinding, especially big stumps where I have to constantly stop and move grindings out of the way to see if I got it all (or see the buried rock that just FUBAR'd a tooth). I've almost dozed off on one or 2.
 
What do you all do with sawdust, say from a big removal where you're breaking a lot of wood down in-place? Scatter it with a blower?
Catch directly on tarps as much as possible if leaving trees bucked where they fall, and cleanup is part of the Scope of Work.
 
Pruning someone's older orchard after they've cut on it for years. Same for topped flowering plums and cherries, though, the ones in front of my customer's house today look amazing in full bloom, 10 years later.

Stump grinding kinda blows. Some satisfaction in getting it ready for replanting.




John, you've mentioned your back before. How is your core strength? How has climbing affected your back pain?

Not bad for previously topped, with only one restoration session.
 

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"No-one does it as well as I do, so it's annoying to watch them try." :saywhat:Ok, I won't argue about it.

Hedges and palms, especially Canary Island and coco's palms. Stopped doing palms a few years before moving here because of the dump prices in Sydney, it was around $300 a ton then and can't imagine what it is now.

Work changed over the years there, less big tree work due to the building and tree guys everywhere so trimming and hedges most of the time. It was driving me mad. First thing I did here after moving in was take out the 80ft long hedge, not doing that for the rest of my life.

Still do one on a big property just out of town but there's plenty of tree work there so can't really get out of that one.
 
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