What's your favorite part of tree work?

[Nailsbeats]

I also like to hear how the client thinks it should be done and what it's worth. It can be good for a laugh sometimes.

 

[tree md]

Good one treeclimber, I can relate to the wood loading. Our loader has a grapple and makes things much easier these days (slightly more boring, but easier). Once in a while I long for the old days of quartering slabs to lift them in the back of the log truck.

Anyhow, my favorite part of tree work has got to be removals. Even if I'm not flying the bucket or climbing, I enjoy working the ground during a removal. Everything has to be in order.

I have a severe case of OCD. Never is there a branch in my lowering zone. My rope goes where I go. I move logs and slabs out of the way into neat piles, I never let brush and wood conglomerate. My saw and rake are always next to each other, neatly placed out of harms way. If this means that I'm working extra hard to keep my work zone clean and organized, then so be it.

Nothing beats the aesthetics of a perfectly set up removal project. I take pride in looking like a professional.

I have a rule that no one is to touch a piece of wood or brush twice. If you pick it up to move it it's going to the truck. I don't believe in working twice as hard and wasting time.

My favorite part is anything to do with the climbing aspect. I just love being up there. I like working out complicated rigging problems and I love doing the hazard trees that no one else wants to touch. I am also a gear head. I love buying new equipment (especially climbing gear) and trying out new techniques.

My least favorite is sales. I used to love doing the sales and I still get a rush when I make a big sale but in the past 2 years prices have dropped so bad that I almost hate to make a sales call. Lots of bargaining and negotiating, competing with part timers and hacks working for beer money. It's just getting old. I have to say the same things over and over again, I sometimes just feel like I am reading from a script. I also hate it when I have to be an a-hole to any of my guys. Most of the time they do a good job but every now and then I have to chew some ass. I don't like it when I have to do that.

 

[tree md]

I like the fame and fortune, all the pretty girls. Its the diamond life fer sure! Man I am so freakin estactic about the whole freakin thing! Now somebody get the back pack blower and get rid of all that dam dog ####!

LOL, I was thinking about how glamorous my life is yesterday. I went in the store for a cup of coffee and most of the guys my age in there are wearing khakis or slacks with nice, short sleeved, collared shirts. I am wearing a two year old, stained born to climb shirt with a couple of holes in it, a pair of baggy carpenter jeans with oil stains and a pair of Carolina boots. I own more ripped up work clothes than I do nice clothes.

I would love to have one of the newer cell phones that these guys are carrying that looks like a mini computer but I have the cheapest phone I could find at the phone store with a cracked cover because I have already sent two cell phones through the chipper in the past and don't want to waste hundreds of dollars on a phone that I know I'll beat up.

Still, I wouldn't trade it for the world. One of the collared shirts opened the door for me yesterday as I came out with hands full of coffee and a bag full of gatoraid for me and my guys. I told him thank you sir and he almost seemed to pity me as I walked by and smiled at him. Inside I am laughing to myself because I know that I am heading off to my office with the best view in town and will likely make more money in this day than he will all month.

 

[arborjockey]

what i really love is Blasting big tops out of trees with inches to spare gives me a rush knowing I could crush a house with a mistake.

:agree2: :agree2: :agree2: :agree2:
:
End up just barely missing the house just to find out your at the wrong adress CRAP

 

[treemandan]

I like working out side and some thing different each day. I trimmed twenty some maples in a cemetery last year and that was great, you would be surprised what goes on in some of them. It was real peaceful at times.

What happens in maples that would surprise me?

 

[treemandan]

I also like to hear how the client thinks it should be done and what it's worth. It can be good for a laugh sometimes.

Sorry to say that gets old.

 

[Groundman One]

While waiting on the groundie to untie a limb from the rigging line,sitting back in the saddle and watching the babe next door prance around the pool in her bikini ,knowing you can see her but also knowing nobody else can.

It's happen probably 30-40 times to me .

One time totally naked but it was a few doors down and she was half way under the lanai,but still,she would have had to been blind and deaf to not notice me in a tree.

Shmuck!

My climber is a long-haried zen hippie-type with about 0% body fat and a perfect tan, the housewives just loooove watching him up in the tree. Meanwhile, back on the ground, yours truly is humping the tree up the truck and chipping the branches, getting no attention at all except from the bugs. mumble... grumble...

My favorite part of the job - eating. We eat really well on the job. We start almost every day with a double espresso and a few pieces of good dark chocolate.

 

[Groundman One]

What happens in maples that would surprise me?

They have weird growths sometimes.

(This pic is from a job we did a few years ago.)

 

[arborjockey]

My favorite part of the job - eating. We eat really well on the job. We start almost every day with a double espresso and a few pieces of good dark chocolate.

I enjoy aout 4-5000 calories for lunchs. I put lunch plural because at 10-12 and 2 Im pounding down sandwhichs, fruit, powerbars, ect:spam::spam:

 

[Groundman One]

I enjoy aout 4-5000 calories for lunchs. I put lunch plural because at 10-12 and 2 Im pounding down sandwhichs, fruit, powerbars, ect:spam::spam:

5000 calories? That's a lot of Big Macs, mac.

 

[brookpederson]

My favorite part is turning nasty, unmaitained, never been trimmed tree's and turn them into something the Home owner can be proud of. Especially the ones the HO wants removed and we can save.

 

[Adkpk]

Spending a day in a tree. Doing what's right to help the tree do it's thing.

 

[a_lopa]

Putting the cheques in the bank

 

[IcePick]

Well, I'm quick, quick like a cat, my friends call me wiskers, so don't worry bout it gramps.

I have a rule that no one is to touch a piece of wood or brush twice. If you pick it up to move it it's going to the truck. I don't believe in working twice as hard and wasting time.

My favorite part is anything to do with the climbing aspect. I just love being up there. I like working out complicated rigging problems and I love doing the hazard trees that no one else wants to touch. I am also a gear head. I love buying new equipment (especially climbing gear) and trying out new techniques.

My least favorite is sales. I used to love doing the sales and I still get a rush when I make a big sale but in the past 2 years prices have dropped so bad that I almost hate to make a sales call. Lots of bargaining and negotiating, competing with part timers and hacks working for beer money. It's just getting old. I have to say the same things over and over again, I sometimes just feel like I am reading from a script. I also hate it when I have to be an a-hole to any of my guys. Most of the time they do a good job but every now and then I have to chew some ass. I don't like it when I have to do that.

 

[tree md]

Well, I'm quick, quick like a cat, my friends call me wiskers, so don't worry bout it gramps.

Bwahahaha! That's funny. I'm smart and quick... And don't make my guys move the same piece of wood a half dozen times...

 

[tree md]

You know it's kind of funny Icepick, I wasn't trying to call you out with that post, I was trying to drop a little knowledge on you which was so freely giving to me. The one touch rule didn't originate with me (although I would like to say it was my idea) it was taught to me by an old timer who was nearly 40 years my senior... A true gramps that I owe so much to. His best teaching was efficiency. When you did something and he watched you he would literally tell you "you wasted three moves doing that task". Didn't matter if it was ground work or climbing, he had been doing it so long he just knew the most efficient way to do it all. He is not the only one I know who employs the one touch rule... Most efficient crew leaders do.

When I am going up the tree if I see an opening I am free falling every limb I can. I figure the best rigging points and instead of piecing it out in 3 or 4 foot sections. I am lowing 2500-5000 pound limbs and 10000 pound leaders and letting the guys cut it from the ground as it's lowered and putting it on the truck. Instead of taking a half hour to an hour piecing out a leader/limb and am lowering it big and letting the guys move it in minutes. I am not the guy who looks awkward and is trying to figure out what to do next while I am screaming at my guys to rearrange sticks or do something. I am the natural who plays it like a chess game, three moves ahead, and always knows the next move to make.

I think you would learn something if you worked a day or two with me...

 

[gr8scott72]

All the way to the truck? Isn't that the skid steer's job? :greenchainsaw:

 

[tree md]

All the way to the truck? Isn't that the skid steer's job? :greenchainsaw:

Sure, if your working with one. Don't matter what your using... Handle the wood once... Don't rearrange it in the playing field. That means put your hands on it once. If you pile it for the skid steer, knuckle boom, still no reason for your men to touch it twice... If you want to work efficient trust me on that one...

 

[gr8scott72]

Sure, if your working with one. Don't matter what your using... Handle the wood once... Don't rearrange it in the playing field. That means put your hands on it once. If you pile it for the skid steer, knuckle boom, still no reason for your men to touch it twice... If you want to work efficient trust me on that one...

I totally agree with you. I work with a young guy that thinks he has to prove how strong he is. Strong? Yes. Smart? No.

No matter how strong he is, he can't out lift the skid steer even though he tries. I try to tell him over and over to use his energy doing something that I can't do while running the skid steer.

 

[Rftreeman]

Putting the cheques in the bank

yep, getting P A I D......is my favorite part......