Lol. Firewood for fat-asses. I love it!!
whadja do today?
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mike515
ArboristSite Operative
I did a lot of pricing/prep work today for our new retail tree sales wing (for lack of a better term) that we are rolling out in a few months. We've already been granted our state nursery license and we close on the deal for the land tomorrow afternoon. It's a little bit of a gamble but I figure nobody else in our area is doing it and the only places around here for most people are chain stores like Lowe's.
Tigwelder83
ArboristSite Operative
Tigwelder83
ArboristSite Operative
Cdl is $400 here... you do the written on your own, get your permit, buy you an hr of instruction and take your test. If your semi skilled, that's all it takes.
Chip bed installed and working. Pick it up tomorrow.
Really nice!!! I’ve had my 02 4300 with 14’ chip body for 10 years now and it’s still one of my favorite trucks.
mike515
ArboristSite Operative
I closed on my commercial property today. Took a quick drive by this evening to make sure there wasn't any hooligans squatting on my land! 
But this morning was pretty odd. I had this storm work job lined up for a few weeks. Talked to the customer last week and said we'd be there this week. Talked to him yesterday and said we would be there this morning. He said he would be home and everything seemed normal. Showed up this morning and all the work was already done. I called him and told him and he said "No, it isn't". I told him it definitely was. He came outside and looked genuinely confused as we're walking around his property. He slowly repeated "What...the....****?" a few times. He said he only called one other company and they never returned his call so he hired us. I have no idea if this guy is full of crap or not but what would be the point of doing something like that? Maybe his wife hired someone? But he said he's been working from home for a few weeks and couldn't understand how a job like that could be done without him hearing it in the house. I almost considered telling him I was going to charge him a fee for having us drive all of our stuff 20 miles to his house but then I remembered that I was going to be in his town on Thursday to do another job for a very good customer of ours so I just called her and asked if we could do her tree instead.
But this morning was pretty odd. I had this storm work job lined up for a few weeks. Talked to the customer last week and said we'd be there this week. Talked to him yesterday and said we would be there this morning. He said he would be home and everything seemed normal. Showed up this morning and all the work was already done. I called him and told him and he said "No, it isn't". I told him it definitely was. He came outside and looked genuinely confused as we're walking around his property. He slowly repeated "What...the....****?" a few times. He said he only called one other company and they never returned his call so he hired us. I have no idea if this guy is full of crap or not but what would be the point of doing something like that? Maybe his wife hired someone? But he said he's been working from home for a few weeks and couldn't understand how a job like that could be done without him hearing it in the house. I almost considered telling him I was going to charge him a fee for having us drive all of our stuff 20 miles to his house but then I remembered that I was going to be in his town on Thursday to do another job for a very good customer of ours so I just called her and asked if we could do her tree instead.
And he was home?
I had that happen, quoted a much lower price and the owner called the other quote immediately to turn him away. Left a message, an email and a text saying to not do the job, 3 days away. I was to be there in 4 days. I drove by the next day to check the leaning tree again and the other guys were taking the tree down. The owner wasn't home at the time, seasonal home. Owner was pissed when I called him to inform him. Turns out the other guys charged him 3X what I quoted, thats why he wanted to cancel asap but they claimed they never got the messages.
Maybe the other guys were more expensive and figured do it and they get paid before you do.
I had that happen, quoted a much lower price and the owner called the other quote immediately to turn him away. Left a message, an email and a text saying to not do the job, 3 days away. I was to be there in 4 days. I drove by the next day to check the leaning tree again and the other guys were taking the tree down. The owner wasn't home at the time, seasonal home. Owner was pissed when I called him to inform him. Turns out the other guys charged him 3X what I quoted, thats why he wanted to cancel asap but they claimed they never got the messages.
Maybe the other guys were more expensive and figured do it and they get paid before you do.
mike515
ArboristSite Operative
Who knows? The other guy supposedly never even called back to set up an estimate. But here is the thing that makes this sketchy to me. I can see if maybe the other company got his message, never called back but then stopped by and did the storm work (that would be highly unprofessional but at least plausible). But it wasn't just the storm damaged stuff. There was a fairly large, healthy limb hanging over the house from a large Oak. It was high up enough that it could be left. It definitely isn't something you would just remove with nobody telling you to do it on a storm damage job. But it was cut off. That tells me that someone walked through that job and told the tree guys to do that. I remember the guy telling me he was worried about it falling on his house so he wanted it removed. If he didn't tell them to do the job...who did?
Edit to say.....yeah....he was home when we got there.
gorman
Addicted to ArboristSite
Storm work is like that. People want it done so quick they don’t care. Just get it out of there.
mike515
ArboristSite Operative
For sure. And we had a massive storm this year the likes of which I've never seen in nearly 30 years of doing this. So everyone was slammed all summer and fall. But why confirm the job last week and then again last night when he could have just said he had it done already? Oh well. The guy still wants a stump ground and he wants to buy some trees from us in the spring so we'll see how that goes.
Tigwelder83
ArboristSite Operative
No plywood!! Got to try out the lights on the loader too.
mike515
ArboristSite Operative
I made this box this evening as kind of a prototype with some scrap wood I had in my wood shop. We'll probably haul the GRCS around in it for a while and see how I can improve it. I tossed the port-a-wrap in there since I had an extra space. I was just shooting for something to keep the components from rattling around during transport. Nevermind the boxes and crap in the background.
Attachments
We fit our grcs in the bottom of the front box on the chip truck (ram 5500 with 12’ chip body). A little tricky for me to do, as I don’t have enough patience usually, but my (current) main ground guy does well with it. I sometimes forget how much stuff there is in those (relatively) small boxes till we start pulling it all out for something real technical. Wraptor, saws, grcs, pole saws, clippers, sling shot, throw lines, climbing gear, multiple pulleys/couple portys... just all that stuff. Kind of satisfying when I stop and think about it sometimes. Nice to have all the gear needed on one relatively compact truck that most any retard can drive (oops, is that politically incorrect??).
).
I should just put that in my help wanted add. “Tree service hiring most any retard. BJ’s forklift certification and Cumberland farms experience preferred, but will train”.
and tracks in snow suck ....
The tracks on my lift actually surprisingly awesome in the snow. I think it’s because there’s so much weight on relatively concentrated (normally turf destroying) tracks. Of course it all depends on what kind of snow/ice etc. I never ran a track loader, but have heard the tracks are like skis in the snow. I can see how they would be.
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