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.