Cool slideshow of crane job

Crane Removal

A view of the house without trees (note deck and Matt standing on deck! The trees would have been near/at the deck.).


A view of Burlington, Vermont from 140 feet!


A picture of me 140 up above Burlington. Bruce the crane operator dragged Beth and me up after the work was finished.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008 was crane removal day. Two pine trees were right next to a house in Burlington. One of the trees actually grew through a specially made hole in the deck. Since it would have taken Heritage 2 days to remove the trees, we subcontracted DJ's, a local tree company that does a lot of crane work.

Doing a crane removal follows several steps, some of which you can see in the pictures:
1) The crane sets itself up, extends the boom, and lowers the "pick" (i think this is what it is called; it is the 180 pound ball that holds the cable) to the ground.
2) Matt, the climber and cutter, puts his climbing rope through the pick and is lifted up to near the top of the tree. He carries with him any number of slings that he thinks necessary to attach to the tree.



3) Matt places the sling(s) around trunk/limbs, and attaches the slings onto the pick.
4) Matt is lowered down to a suitable point on the tree where he cuts the tree. He has to understand pretty well where to cut, since he doesn't want the tree to flip over.
5) Matt makes the cut, slowly and evenly, through the trunk. The sawing actually takes quite a bit of time, since he does not want to pinch his saw, and he wants to make sure the piece won't move suddenly.



6) When the cutting is done and the tree is free, Matt 'zips' off of the tree with his rope. When he hits the ground, he immediately pulls his rope out, and gets out of the way.
7) Bruce, the crane operator, then moves the 4,000 pound piece of tree onto the driveway, where we are standing by to limb it. As we limb the tree, we pull the butt end toward the chipper, ensuring that the tree will at some point lay flat on the ground. In one picture you can see me doing this with a big 440 Stihl (super heavy, when you have to lift is over your head!).





8) When all the limbs have been removed, the log is laid on the ground and pushed aside. A guy with a log loader comes by and picks up the logs.
TOTAL TIME for 2 75 foot+ pine trees, from start to finish: 2 hours. TWO HOURS! Like I said above, it would have take Heritage 2 DAYS to do this work. Bravo to DJ's and Matt (My only advice to Matt: wear a hard hat and ear and eye protection, dude!).

Heritage Tree Care Early Days

(Ramadi and one of our chicks, kicking it.)

Well, after going out with Limbwalker Tree Service for three years, I decided to break up. For me, it was an easy decision; the company just didn't work the way I wanted it to. Mechanical issues, human resource issues, working conditions: all of these led me to jump ship and end the relationship. And I can't believe how good I feel about that decision. I feel AWESOME!

Since coming on board the exquisitely run Heritage Tree Care, I have been climbing trees left and right. I feel that my skills are a total and real asset to the company. Beth and Patrick are real humans, fun, loving, kind, sympathetic, and treat all of us (Jim, Paul, me) like members of the family (Beth says that she sometimes cooks breakfast for Paul, who lives off the grid and might not have the capabilities to crank sweet breakfasts in the woods). So there. Limbwalker, goodbye, and Heritage hello.

Here is my first movie of Heritage work. Notice the beautifully sounding diesel truck that is automatic! Not gas and not standard! Wow!

The End of Limbwalker and John

Yes, indeed, folks, I have decided to leave Limbwalker Tree Service for greener, leafier pastures. I will be going to work with (note the term WITH) Heritage Tree Care, owned and operated by Beth Fuehrer and Patrick Grant (hubbie and wife team). They rule, and since I rule, they want me to help all of us rule a lot more. So, so long Limbies and hello Heritage!

It's Finally Warm

Thus was Lambert sitting in the glorious sun in Ripton, as I monkeyed around in a 100+ foot white pine.

It was 80 degrees F yesterday. Two weeks ago, there was 5 feet of snow behind my garage. I rode my motorcycle in a t-shirt yesterday, and did not freeze to death.

This is California weather. And we are loving it. It makes us nervous, though. For example, the NOAA issued a fire warning for today. Meaning, it is so hot and dry that there could be fires around Vermont. And two weeks ago it was snowing.

Tree work has been cool lately. Here are a couple of links to videos that I took of recent stuff.


Movie One has me climbing around in a mammoth white pine in Ripton, Vermont. We pruned it and took out dead wood. I ascended the tree using ascenders, the first time I have done such a thing. It got me up the tree fast and tirelessly.


Movie Two, Movie Three, Movie Four, and Movie Five show Mike Lambert taking down a set of poplars in a place called Southwind in Burlington. We normally shear hedges and prune shrubs in this condo complex, but for this job we actually did tree work, which was a massive, unbelievable relief.


And for one of the first jobs we did of the season, here is a shot of Mike Sabatino taking down what I think is a hickory in North Hero, Vermont. The dude rules. There was snow and ice on the ground during this job. We slipped on the ice. The truck and chipper were miles away because we couldn't bring them down the driveway.

But today (April 23, my brother's birthday), it is supposed to be like a million degrees again. We are off to another condo complex that looks like a cross between Disneyland and a hospital. Fun stuff.

The Upcoming 2008 Season with Limbwalker

Sir/Madam:

Thus begins the new tree season for Limbwalker Tree Service. March 17, 2008, and we shall rule the tree world once more. I, John, will begin work tomorrow, March 10, as Mike and I survey ice storm damage from the weekend of March 8-9. Hopefully the one-inch thick ice was not too devastating. Photos to follow, minions.

It's been a long time

Well, it's been a long time since I have written in the blog. Jennifer and I got married. We are about to buy a house. All my friends came out to visit and we partied. It is summer and I do stuff every day after work. And it is 90 degrees during the day.

As far as the tree world goes: Jordan, the guy who was featured in several previous blog entries, has flown the coop. He turned out to be sort of a jerk, a know-it-all, and he did some really crazy, stupid tree work. And one day, poof, he stopped coming to work. He wanted Mike (the boss) to fire him, soz that he could get unemployment. Too bad, and good riddance.

So now we have Aram, ground worker extraordinaire, and Mike Sabatino, an "intern" from Paul Smith tree college who now works for us full time. The poor bastard has to drive 1.5 hours north almost every day to come up to Burlington. He rules, works hard and deals with our jokes.

I have no new picts for now. Too bad. However, I have the camera with me to record the incredible exploits of the greatest tree workers on earth.

Some Old Tree Work Stuff

I decided to show some older picts and movies of tree work. They should be fairly interesting.

In these movies, I am in a pine tree, near Lake Champlain. These were taken the last day of the 2006 season. Earlier on this day I ran over a 500 dollar chainsaw with a huge truck. Luckily, the saw made it.
Movie One,
Movie Two
and Movie Three

In these movies, I am in the biggest tree in Burlington, an Eastern Cottonwood (130 feet tall, circumference of trunk = 27 feet). I got a limb stuck in another limb, and this made my life hell for about an hour.
Movie One
Movie Two

Rutland Devastation, con't

We continued cleaning up the devastation of the April 16th Rutland storm during the week of April 23-27. Pictured above is an obviously smashed Cadillac, which was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This car was parked in front of a mobile home, making me think that this was the owner's prized possession. Hopefully, he/she has insurance.

We did some work at a couple of summer camps, one called Camp Betsy Cox (a girls camp) and the other called Sangamon (the boys camp). Sangamon had by far the most concentrated tree destruction I have seen in the Rutland area. Click here for a quick look at a tiny amount of the wreckage. We will be going back to Rutland periodically to clean more stuff up.

Rutland, Vermont Hit by Hurricane Force Winds

April 17, 2007
After getting April 16th off due to a late season 6-inch snowstorm, we headed down to Rutland, Vermont (about 1.5 hours south of Burlington). The drive, massive. Aram, Jordan, Mike, and I hopped in a couple of vehicles and off we went. The mission: to save Rutland and as many trees as we could. We heard rumors of over 1,000 downed trees. There were at least 100 trees down on city property. The same storm that dumped 6 inches of snow on Burlington produced 80 mile per hour winds that swept out of the mountains to the east of Rutland.

When we arrived at our first job site, this is what we found:




At this particular job, the client lost 6 massive silver maples. One tree went over, and like dominoes, the rest followed. Our task was to clean it up and get trees that were hung up in other trees, unhung-up. Get it? Some of the logs we were dealing with were about 3 feet across. Luckily we have a log loader, so we let mechanics do the brutal work. The miracle about this particular job was that none of the trees hit the client's house! For a quick movie of this job, click here. For another movie of Mike, owner, trying to deal with a huge hung up tree, click here and here.

Dead Pine Tree Takedown

It was fun. It was terrifying. It was exciting. It was a lot of wood to move up a huge hill. The dead pine of West Addison needed the professional detail of Limbwalker Tree Service, and we were there to provide it. Jordan, the man, deftly climbed an adjacent living pine to set his rope (you can see him in the first picture, way up there). He then set a lowering line in another pine tree. This line would allow us to cut the dead pine from the bottom of the tree and lower it to the ground. Jordan also set a "tag" line, which is a line you use to pull a tree in a certain direction. The direction we wanted was: away from the lake, up the hill. We put the tag line through a rope puller, and pulled like hell. I made the face cut on the dead pine and watched as Mike and Jordan pulled it over. It was insanely exciting. The dead pine got caught up in a nearby pine tree, but finally freed itself. As Mike was lowering the dead pine, it finally snapped where the rope was tied. Luckily, it was pointing in the direction that we wanted and fell to the ground. We whooped it up a little, knowing that we rule. The whole process, from rope setting to total clean-up took four hours. One tree, four hours. Not bad.

Can you see the before and after pictures? Tree in before picture, and Jordan standing over tree in after picture. Pretty sweet, eh?

HEDGES! ARGH!

So, there you have it, folks: the greatest hedge work in the history of the world. Mike, Jordan, and I worked on a massive number of hedges at a condo place called Southwind, which is about 5 minutes from where I live. We reduced the hedges by about three feet; you can see what this entailed by looking at the pictures (snip, snip, chop, chop, chip, chip). The idea behind the madness is this: privet hedges grow like wildfire (approximately 25 inches in a season). If you reduce them significantly, they grow more intensely. The hedges we were working on had never really been reduced or maintained correctly. Therefore, they were unsightly, wide, and filled with dead wood. We came to the rescue, and made sure that, come spring, these would be the greatest looking hedges in the world. I'll report back.

Oaks on Mallett's Bay!

Yesterday, Friday, we worked on three large oak trees right on Mallett's bay, here in Colchester, Vermont. Pretty sweet, eh? The goal was to "dead wood" the trees (get rid of all the dead branches in the trees), and remove any unsafe, structurally unsound limbs. Mike Lambert, in the first picture (look hard, and you will see him near the top of the middle tree), removed a fairly large limb that was split right down the middle. We lowered it with a rope and had to attached a tag line, which allowed us to pull the piece into the yard (otherwise it would have landed in a hedge).

In the second picture you can see me, in the tree to the right, and Jordan, in the other tree. I think I am setting my tie-in point, and Jordan is still climbing. The temperature at the time of the photo was approximately 0 to 4 degrees F. Meaning, it was really, really cold. However, overall, a wonderful tree to climb and a beautiful day to do it in. On Monday, we are off to trim hedges! Yippee!

The New Dude

Today, the first real work day for the newly-minted Limbwalker Tree Service. We finally found a decent human being in the form of Jordan Fletcher, who took down the above willow tree in exceptional fashion. You can also see part two of Limbwalker, Mike Lambert, being a slave and dragging brush to our monstrous chipper. Awe inspiring stuff, folks. But seriously, Jordan has the knack, something we have been lacking for the past year with all the others we have hired (Lambert being the exception). Jordan is like me in that: he has a Masters degree; he taught prior to doing tree work; and he is a furniture maker (well, I make furniture, and would never call myself a furniture maker). We differ in that he has two kids and is married. I have no kids and am getting married. Sweet.

So, for today, we went to Richmond to tear down the fairly large willow tree photographed above. There are three willows along the drive in various states of destruction. We were supposed to take down all three, but since this is a job for Mike's wife's cousin, it is free. Mike used it as a training day. Not bad. Check out the snow bank we were climbing around: at least three feet deep. When we arrived at the site, it was snowing like mad. And the temperature plummeted throughout the day, going from around 35 to 20. And tomorrow it is supposed to be 2. No typo there: 2 degrees F.

Ugh! Snow Shoveling!

March 1, 2007 is our first day of work for this season. So, what did we do? We shoveled snow out of a huge 30 by 40 yard parking lot. We keep the truck(s) and chipper(s) in this lot, so it was imperative to get rid of the three feet of snow that had collected in the lot. We used a 12-horsepower snow blower and the backs of Mike, Mike and me to remove all the snow. It only took 7 hours! Joy! And then....today, March 2, it has snowed about 4 inches. Back to the lot for more shoveling on Monday. Ugh!

California Treeing, Feburary 2007

Just returned from two weeks in the San Francisco bay area where I was lucky enough to work with Maguire Tree Care and Vital Tree Care, two tree businesses run by friends. We did a variety of work.

For the first job, we did some crown height reduction in some screen trees for a client in Woodside. This involved climbing tiny trees, coring into wood that was like 2 inches thick, and reducing the height of the trees. I forgot the name of the trees we did this in. I also climbed three small redwoods very close to power lines. Scary, but also kind of fun. The last tree I climbed held onto my ring device, and I had to reclimb the tree to get it unstuck. Drag. Then I lost the ring device on the job, supposedly (we can't find it).

The second job was working on a bunch of valley oaks in Woodside, California. Fred, Paul, and Mike (Paul's groundsman) climbed and pruned the valley oaks while I ascended a small redwood to take out a dead top. I also climbed a 25-foot black walnut and removed it. It was slightly difficult because all the trees were over a horse track, and riders came by constantly. One horse refused to calm down, and Paul and I watched for 20 minutes as the rider attempted to calm the animal (we think the chainsaws freaked the horse). I then played "rail" (a phrase we yell to tell climbers if a car is coming) for about an hour. Boring, but, hey, California sun and shine!

I then worked with Paul on removing two pines in a guy's front yard, right on Route One, right on the Pacific Ocean (picture above is from tree I was in). This was the most physically challenging work I did in California, mainly because I had to haul a huge saw (a Husky) into the tree to chunk down wood (and I am out of shape!). I also removed a VERY dead pine, which was semi-sketch. No clean-up though, and that was cool.

The last job was with Fred, and I did some of my most challenging climbing. We removed mistletoe from a 30-40 foot Modesto ash. When I first tried to access the tree, I got both throw line and rope stuck. I had to climb the tree freestyle, with minimal rope help. My tie-in was sketchy, since the tree had very tight crotches and not a lot of wood up top. In any case, I did manage to get around the entire tree from one tie-in. We removed two fairly large branches over the house, with Fred acting as ground man.

In all, I love California. The trees are magnificent, huge, diverse, green, and funky. I would love, someday, to climb one of the big redwoods (Fred recently climbed a 365-foot redwood in northern California).