Acrobatic Fun, Flatulence, and Fun In The Woods

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This morning, I went up to mark cut trees in skyline corridors. That means following a straight flagged in line and marking any leave tree so there's a straight cleared out 12 foor wide spot for the lines to go.

Usually I take off on my own. This time, the line was not in yet. The logger had to run to town for a hose repair, so gave the compass to his son, who is the faller, hooktender, and chokersetter. I assumed the son knew how to work with a compass.

So, we head down the chute off the landing. I immediately lose traction, sit down and do a butt slide. Not bad, just muddy butt....:) The son is talking to himself and cheerily saying he's got a tree right down there. We wander in the direction of down there. Suddenly, something happened, a moss snake? Oversize amoeba? I'm yelling something about excrement and doing a somersault down the hill. As I stop, I immediately yell, "I'M ALL RIGHT." because I am. My legs are just uphill and there's a rootwad in the way too.
The logger yells, "I'LL HELP YOU GET UP." I yell back, "DON'T NEED HELP, I'M A SKIER." and I roll my legs over my head so they are on the downhill side and I can spring up. OK. Just a bruised spot from somersaulting with metal quart cans of paint on my back. Paint gun is fine, no sounds of crunching ribs during the acrobatics like one time.

I'm thinking that I usually have one grand bout of acrobatics a year and now it is over with for this year. We go on wandering.

I finally realize he doesn't know how to sight with a compass. I try to explain but he isn't listening. Just telling me he knows how. I'm trying to be tactful.

Finally, after almost causing me to do more acrobatics from laughing at his comment about rainpaints.."I hate wearing rainpants because when I fart it goes right up to my head." he admitted that maybe he didn't know how to run a compass.

So, we had a quick lesson at the tail tree and he guessed which direction the yarder was in. We started up, just flagging, no marking. It didn't look too straight in some places. I quit being so tactful and went on up to the landing and fetched the GPS.

Meanwhile, he's straightening his flagging and doing a pretty good job, rainpants and all. I meet him back at the tail tree. The GPS says the azimuth we used will hit the yarder--kind of late for that but it worked again.

I mark out the trees and give him the stinkeye when he wants "a clearcut". At one point, I threaten to start singing loudly because I don't want to hear about some guy on TV who eats the raw eyballs of critters. I am not a gifted singer.

We get back up just when his dad has the loader repaired and running.

It took a bit longer to walk off the stiffness after driving in from the woods. I've just had a session of soaking in the hot tub.

They don't show this stuff on Axemen.:cheers:
 
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This story would have made an even better video. . . You could call them "The Axefolks". . . Plop them on YouTube, get 5 million views. :cheers:
 
This story would have made an even better video. . . You could call them "The Axefolks". . . Plop them on YouTube, get 5 million views. :cheers:

The rainpants sage is the guy cutting the skyline loose on the video on the chainsaw forum. He's grown up in the woods, has secret mushroom patches where he set a record last year for the most mushroom money earned in a day, pretty good salmon fisherman--quite the outdoorsman.
 
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