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?