Lets get this party started...

[rbtree]

Yo big John,

not a challenge, but this little tree took us two days to remove. I'd like to see the crew that could do it in less than 1.5!

Plus a couple hours to drop the last 10 feet (60-65 inch butt) and get it loaded. And repair some minor fence damage and replace the part we took down.

2 climbers, 2.5 groundies (one a bit gimpy), 8 cord of wood or so, 40 yards of chips.....

2 climbers ( for about half of each day) in a removal sounds strange, but it worked. Sometimes one of us had to wait for the groundies to be free, but it was definitely faster than one climber---too tight a spot and too huge of limbs to rope huge stuff..primaries on one side, fences on two others. tiny drop zone...

This had been the largest white pinein Seattle. I underbid it by $1000, but I wanted to be nice to the not rich client. The tough ones are hard to price right. especially out here, lots of low ballers.

(I've posted other shots from this job on various threads.)

 

[rbtree]

"Steelhead Bob" York, letting a small piece go.

53 years fishing, logging and/or climbing, and still going strong!

 

[rbtree]

Not what you'd call high quality timber, eh?

 

[rbtree]

The little wimp (errr, moi) not happy about wielding the 42 inch barred (is that a woid??) 3120 behemoth....in the air!

See the fence section that we shoulda also removed? Well, sloppy Rog nailed it with a puny branch....

 

[rbtree]

Who needs daylight, there's work to do!

 

[rbtree]

On this cool job, removing a bunch of trees prepping a site for a new home, we created close to 15 habitat snags...The client grew up in a ramshackle log cabin, which is unfortunately going by the way to make room for a more dconventional home. Shame... Her brother lives in another cabin next door, it too is going eventually. Too bad, now the neighborhood will be more normal.. all the other homes are in the 300-800K upscale range.

 

[rbtree]

This elm branch was way out there, wrong angle, too mossy and no suitable tie in. so we tied it off and tensioned it with the chipper winch, so Ian felt safe to footlock it. Then he had to pole saw lighten the end a lot, it was way out of scale and heavy,nothing to cable it to either...and a big branch had failed, so it was more exposed.

 

[rbtree]

I like to see ya get out on the end of this one, MikeM!!

Though I admit, Ian should have been out six or so feet further.

If I'd been doing the tree, I might have set a lifeline as high as possible in the crown, but even then, the angles were just not good at all...and all that wet moss to boot...

 

[rbtree]

Same limb, deceiving camera angle.

 

[rbtree]

Amazing what a few thousand (?) beetles can do to an elm in a few short months!

The ground was littered with bark, some pieces three feet long. This was the first time I'd seen the effects of DED, much less worked on an infected tree. The job entailed removing 4 of them, two days, $4600- 875 crane fees, close to 40m crane picks, one heck of a job!

 

[rbtree]

Camera angle is off a bit here...storm clouds a brewin'.....brrr

 

[rbtree]

Needless to say, with the crane there and all, I was less than pleased (nor did my spewed epithets belie my feelings) about the hour it took to unclog the chipper... we didnt waste much crane time thankfully.

 

[rbtree]

The trickiest pick...tangled in the lower canopy...brittle dead stuff.. and primaries below. plus me directly below the detangling operation.

 

[rbtree]

Ah, but it's all about light, a photographer's dream!!!

 

[rbtree]

Firedust!!!

 

[rbtree]

One mo' elm pick

 

[rbtree]

This Thursday, some small maple craning:
3.5 mb file video, sorry the better one where the log is picked off is too large a file. Not much action here, if you don't want to open.

 

[rbtree]

This neighborhood is in a Seattle historic district, so the trees are protected. These 2 hard maple were hazardous, so we removed them. There are a bunch of huge elms and other trees that have been V pruned around the primaries, not common in this area. Now they are way above the primaries, and beautiful trees, but tough to prune or remove.

With the crane close to the primaries, we had to take some small logs.

I'm bummed Ian didn't tie in twice here...he usually does. I was too busy shooting with two cameras to notice. (Love my new superwide angle lens, a 17/40 mm, on the 35 mm film camera.)

 

[rbtree]

Also Thursday, I helped ex employee Eli move this huge Japanese maple that he got for free! He hopes to sell it for $30000. I fronted the expenses, close to $2000, he promised that he'd pay me $4000 when he finds a buyer. The tree is 120 yrs old, about 9-10 feet tall and 12-14 feet wide, and a great specimen. Laceleafs this size are mighty rare and valuable, but I wonder if he'll get that much for it...$20000 for sure though!

 

[rbtree]

He did a quite a job digging and rigging it.