It's a climbing thing, you'll never understand

[booboo]

Some of the big trees we cut down make you stop and think, "Why do I do this for a living?" Being a reletavely new business, we tend to get a lot of big removals. We do them all. But sometimes, looking at one of these huge trees, I can get a little bit discouraged when it comes on the wrong day. I have noticed that this frame of mind can seriously affect your BALLS. (I mean nasty situations are harder to deal with.) If you've dealt with these situations for many years, it can build up on you, especially when you are self employed and expecting a baby !!!!!!! When your frame of mind comes around and you're warmed up, you're a !@#$i'n pro. Does anyone else suffer these mid-career blues?

Yeah, my full time, pay the bills (sort of), keep the family insured gig that I'm about 1/2 way to retirement eligibility on is becoming a serious drag. It's getting tough to show up with much enthusiasm these days. I often think about going back to tree care full time...seems like things were a lot simpler then, but I didn't know it at the time.

Oh wait, that's not what you meant was it? :bang:

 

[feller]

Green grass

Yeah, my full time, pay the bills (sort of), keep the family insured gig that I'm about 1/2 way to retirement eligibility on is becoming a serious drag. It's getting tough to show up with much enthusiasm these days. I often think about going back to tree care full time...seems like things were a lot simpler then, but I didn't know it at the time.

Oh wait, that's not what you meant was it? :bang:

I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. Not that I dont love what I do, but with many years you can become all too aware of the pros and cons.

 

[tree md]

Been climbing trees as long as I can remember for fun and refuge. I climbed a lot as a kid to hunt from an elevated position. Had a guy offer to put me to work on a tree job in 91, I guess I was 23. I worked that first day on the ground and watched two climbers work. They kept having to yell at me to get to work because I was mesmerized by the climbing and the technical takedowns (we dropped 14 trees that day). At the end of the day the guy I worked for handed me a hundred dollar bill and I told him next time I wanted to climb. Lol, the next day he sent me up a tree with a set of his older climbing gear and I never worked as a groundsman again. Sure, I worked on the ground when I had too but from then on I was a climber. I ended up buying the second hand climbing gear from the guy by working it off. Learned a lot from that old guy. I never will forget one I took down with that guy just before I went out on my own. It was about a 75' hardwood that was dead in the top and had three forks that went out over a swimming pool. I butt tied the three forks together and they tied the rope to the truck to pull the top off of me. I notched the tree just under the three main forks about 40' up in the tree. I noticed the neighbors across the street had gotten a video camera out and was videoing the whole thing. Three guys got on the rope along with the truck and pulled the top right off of me as I made my back cut. The dead top of the tree exploded when it hit the ground and came up to my level. I remember thinking "wow, apocalypse now" . When I got down the homeowner was all smiles and the guy across the street just grinned and shook his head. I was handed 3 one hundred dollar bills for 20 minutes work and left the trunk for the rest of the guys to drop (I had another job to climb that day). I was hooked, lol.

I have worked from a pickup and I have worked for a couple of the largest services around. Done everything from arial lifts to kitty cat rescue and loved every minute of it

I took a bad fall back in 2001 and was out of commission for about a year. I have taken down a few trees since then but haven't been doing it everyday. Last week I took one down that was as big as the one I got hurt on. My first bigun since my accident. It was a cottonwood that was 5' across at the stump (we measured it) and I imagine 4' diameter at the trunk. Had to rope everything from over the neighbors house. I can't describe how I felt when I put that sucker on the ground!