Oh, I'm a fence crusher

[Rookie1]

I'm a fence crusher, I'm a fence crusher... become one now.

I like your taste in music Dan. Also sounds like you are a good honest man. Keep doing what your doing! It sucks when we mess up but thats what life is all about. Im 41 and I still mess stuff up,maybe not as much as when I was 20 but I still do. :msp_wink:

 

[TreeAce]

Atleast you can admit to what happened taking full responsibilty for your actions. I know of a few "tree guys" who couldnt do that. You had a brain fart...it happens. I had one on last thursday but i got lucky. I was removing ice storm hangers from some pin oaks at a client/friends mansion. The house is right on lake Erie and the wind was kickn across that lake. Anyway...I am on the last of 4 trees that was left to be done and i need to get done and get to next job. My arms are tired but I just got ONE MORE hanger. I get up there and of course its all snarled up. At this point I THINK...put a rope on the butt end. But I dont. I get a pole saw and start disecting this hanger. Every little tip piece I cut I keep thinking...rope...rope..But I dont. Finally its a bent over piece hanging there prolly 4 inches at the big end and 5 feet long. I reach up and cut some and then pull hanger to me with pole saw. I have ahold of it. My arms are KILLING me at this point. I cut the bit holding it. Now I got it. So I look down , see my path to drop n let her go. Wind gust pushes it...bounce off other branch...cart wheeling towards house!!!! OMG...Falls alittle short...hits and falls against house snarly end first and bounces off cedar siding missing a window by maybe a foot. No damage. Lucky for alot of reasons on that one. The torn end eased the hit on that cedar siding. A clean cut surely woulda atleast left a "half moon" dent. If I had broke the window then holy ****. HO is in Indian Wells CA all winter which adds to problem. Plus security alarm would go off. I am lucky bumping house didnt set it off. I got lucky on that "brian fart"....I just know better

 

[Dieselpower01]

We have all had these kinda moments... just jump in there and do it without much thought. Glad your ok and everything worked out for you.

 

[NCTREE]

I had a little incident yesterday myself, I smashed a couple of 20' tall norway spruce. I made the Ho aware it might happen and he didn't carf but I hate doing #### like that. The oak tree was very dead and brittle. No way it could be rigged either. Thats not the worst part either. The one lead I had to cut which was 40' tall and about 18" in diameter. It was showing some stress cracks and I anticipated that it could barber chair on me. Sure enough it did barber chair one me. It didn't come back on me and I wasn't hurt but it sure did knock a few years off my life. I know I made two mistakes, one my saw was a little dull and two I should have tried to bore cut. Anyways the HO was happy to have it on the ground and I might get lots more work out of it but I still hate doing damage especially to other trees. I just feel im better than that. Lesson learned.

 

[TreeClimber57]

I'm a fence crusher, I'm a fence crusher... become one now.

Bagged me a nice one the other day. After it was done I was looking around for someone to blame and was kinda dissapointed I was all alone.

It was one of those plastic fences around a horse farm and I did a real good job on it. I called the lady out to check it out and this is what she said: We live in this 6 million dollar house on this big ass horse farm and when you came in you gave me an honest deal to do the job, the last guy wanted 3 times what you asked but you charged us what the job was worth and didn't try to rape us cause we are rich as ####. Don't worry about the fence.
Well, maybe she didn't say it like that but that was what she said.


You know they should make little fence, light post, gutter, dog decals (like the ones they put on planes to show how many things they have killed) and we could put them on our fenders. Toby Sherrill will sell em.

Well crap does happen. The more you do the more you learn .. and the most common way to learn is by doing something not quite .. shall we say.. in optimal manner

Very few of us on here have not nicked something over they years.. especially if doing residential. A limb comes off sooner than expected, something gets caught up and rolls a bit.. whatever.. it can happen.

Just make sure it isn't a car or house!! .. or similar high price item.

 

[treeclimber101]

Ahhhh fences we love breaking fences , especially the ones that so rotten its just termites holding hands , as a matter of fact last week we were working in the back corner of the yard and one of the guys tried to jump and old split rail and ran up and as soon as his hand hit the fence the top rail collapsed and he fell right on top of it , it was so funny the HO saw the whole thing and was giggling from the sliding back door , it happens ... we've gotten very good at breaking them and fixing them ..

 

[treemandan]

Yes, I decided it was complancey. A smug feeling of contentment. I had case of that many years but was able to shrug it off when I felt it coming on and everything was allright. Got me this time, the one and only time. Everything else has been error

 

[Frax]

Yes, I decided it was complancey. A smug feeling of contentment. I had case of that many years but was able to shrug it off when I felt it coming on and everything was allright. Got me this time, the one and only time. Everything else has been error

Sounds like you are freaked out more by the fact that you can't reconstruct the subte signs and feelings that normally accomany any task, rather than by what turned out to be, on the scale of tree work, a fairly small thing. This would freak me too. I would wonder about my mind.
But it happens to everyone I think.
Was it exactly like when you are driving that familiar road and you realize you don't really even remember the ride? Everyone has this sensation when driving becomes something you've done for deades. But no one feels comfortable with that. Or shouldn't.

 

[lego1970]

I always told people I had over 3 million NC accident free miles. If they asked (seldom) I'd tell them NC stands for non consecutive. I learned it from listening to public officials.
Phil

LOL, I like that. Honestly, I'm gonna use that for now on

 

[tree MDS]

Atleast you can admit to what happened taking full responsibilty for your actions. I know of a few "tree guys" who couldnt do that. You had a brain fart...it happens. I had one on last thursday but i got lucky. I was removing ice storm hangers from some pin oaks at a client/friends mansion. The house is right on lake Erie and the wind was kickn across that lake. Anyway...I am on the last of 4 trees that was left to be done and i need to get done and get to next job. My arms are tired but I just got ONE MORE hanger. I get up there and of course its all snarled up. At this point I THINK...put a rope on the butt end. But I dont. I get a pole saw and start disecting this hanger. Every little tip piece I cut I keep thinking...rope...rope..But I dont. Finally its a bent over piece hanging there prolly 4 inches at the big end and 5 feet long. I reach up and cut some and then pull hanger to me with pole saw. I have ahold of it. My arms are KILLING me at this point. I cut the bit holding it. Now I got it. So I look down , see my path to drop n let her go. Wind gust pushes it...bounce off other branch...cart wheeling towards house!!!! OMG...Falls alittle short...hits and falls against house snarly end first and bounces off cedar siding missing a window by maybe a foot. No damage. Lucky for alot of reasons on that one. The torn end eased the hit on that cedar siding. A clean cut surely woulda atleast left a "half moon" dent. If I had broke the window then holy ****. HO is in Indian Wells CA all winter which adds to problem. Plus security alarm would go off. I am lucky bumping house didnt set it off. I got lucky on that "brian fart"....I just know better

Every time I can remember breaking something, it always started with "why am I doing this?" playing in my head as I was making the cut (or doing whatever caused the breakage). Thankfully it's never been anything big enough to really be an issue.

I could see how it could be kinda hard to take a sumac very seriously, but that's the type of thing that gets us.. or the dan, in this case.

 

[TreeClimber57]

I got lucky on that "brian fart"....I just know better

Yep. And when you get tired, or a little behind schedule is when you have to be the most careful.. that is when accidents happen most.

 

[husabud]

Every time I can remember breaking something, it always started with "why am I doing this?" playing in my head as I was making the cut (or doing whatever caused the breakage). Thankfully it's never been anything big enough to really be an issue.

I could see how it could be kinda hard to take a sumac very seriously, but that's the type of thing that gets us.. or the dan, in this case.

I Know that feeling. Happened last sat. "Why am I notching this spar like this? I never do this." Wham!:msp_w00t: Oh S### that's his "20 year old Holly, please be careful." Long story short, $300 bucks right back into his Third house owning pocket. Damn.

 

[tree MDS]

Here was a close one from last fall. Tree wasn't supposed to be anywhere near that shed. Thank god it rolled off that spruce, because it was headed right for the shed up until that point!

 

[treemandan]

I Know that feeling. Happened last sat. "Why am I notching this spar like this? I never do this." Wham!:msp_w00t: Oh S### that's his "20 year old Holly, please be careful." Long story short, $300 bucks right back into his Third house owning pocket. Damn.

I skipped over the " why I am doing this like this" part and went to the " why did I do that"

See? Usually we can recognize what we are doing wrong cause we know how to do it right. I didn't recognize. Made me feel like novice, like the first time I was tried to drop a tree and went up and starting cutting. TreeCo was like, " maybe you should think about that first cause there is a wire right there... dumbass"

 

[climberjones]

Know matter how long i do this gig at least once a year ill do something stupid and have a close call or break a little something that puts me in check and resets my meter were all human and if we didnt break little things then we would break big things ! My opinion!

 

[climberjones]

I'm a fence crusher, I'm a fence crusher... become one now.

Bagged me a nice one the other day. After it was done I was looking around for someone to blame and was kinda dissapointed I was all alone.

It was one of those plastic fences around a horse farm and I did a real good job on it. I called the lady out to check it out and this is what she said: We live in this 6 million dollar house on this big ass horse farm and when you came in you gave me an honest deal to do the job, the last guy wanted 3 times what you asked but you charged us what the job was worth and didn't try to rape us cause we are rich as ####. Don't worry about the fence.
Well, maybe she didn't say it like that but that was what she said.


You know they should make little fence, light post, gutter, dog decals (like the ones they put on planes to show how many things they have killed) and we could put them on our fenders. Toby Sherrill will sell em.

Hi fence crusher nice to meet you im a sidewalk light crusher (habitual)

 

[murphy4trees]

There are cuts that you can make to reduce or eliminate the chance of barber chair, and branch splitting.. I AM still looking for the right spot to create an intentional barber chair, to reduce the height of the lay. That's gonna be fun.

that said, I've been making all kinds of mistakes this year.. its wierd.. like the brain just isn't working right.. I attribute it to possible infectious disease.. I had lyme bad in '98 and remember the brain farts I made at the height of that illness. Been feeling pretty shtty lately. Was diagnosed with chronic fatigue last year.
Might be a litttle recurrance, after all the junk I ate this winter..

This is more than just shaking off the winter blues... I left my car door open and ran the trailer fender right into it... Broke a bunch of slate with the skid steer, flipped the skid loader backwards.. etc..

I had a little incident yesterday myself, I smashed a couple of 20' tall norway spruce. I made the Ho aware it might happen and he didn't carf but I hate doing #### like that. The oak tree was very dead and brittle. No way it could be rigged either. Thats not the worst part either. The one lead I had to cut which was 40' tall and about 18" in diameter. It was showing some stress cracks and I anticipated that it could barber chair on me. Sure enough it did barber chair one me. It didn't come back on me and I wasn't hurt but it sure did knock a few years off my life. I know I made two mistakes, one my saw was a little dull and two I should have tried to bore cut. Anyways the HO was happy to have it on the ground and I might get lots more work out of it but I still hate doing damage especially to other trees. I just feel im better than that. Lesson learned.

 

[NCTREE]

There are cuts that you can make to reduce or eliminate the chance of barber chair, and branch splitting.. I AM still looking for the right spot to create an intentional barber chair, to reduce the height of the lay. That's gonna be fun.

that said, I've been making all kinds of mistakes this year.. its wierd.. like the brain just isn't working right.. I attribute it to possible infectious disease.. I had lyme bad in '98 and remember the brain farts I made at the height of that illness. Been feeling pretty shtty lately. Was diagnosed with chronic fatigue last year.
Might be a litttle recurrance, after all the junk I ate this winter..

This is more than just shaking off the winter blues... I left my car door open and ran the trailer fender right into it... Broke a bunch of slate with the skid steer, flipped the skid loader backwards.. etc..

Sounds like you could use a vacation but yeah I know what you mean. It happens from time to time ya get into a rut and feels like you can't get out.

I think if I would have bored it I could have eliminated the problem. I was stupid not sharpening my saw before i went up there. Once I got up there and started cutting I just wanted get it done and get the hell out of that tree. It made a weird cracking sound while I was up there. My groundie heard it too, had me a little shakey after that.

If anyone has other techniques or cuts for eliminating the risk of barber chair up in the tree im all ears.

 

[oldugly]

At one point some years ago, my son who works with me told me I had a vendetta against fences. Three fences in three days. Never mind I missed all the overhangs over wires, houses, landscaping, lights, etc. etc. It seemed for a few days there, I would put the last limb on the fence. Never too serious of damage, had to replace one post on a split rail, but that was it.
I have never had an accident on a "hard" or "difficult" tree. Its the easy ones that get me every time. I can rig out the stuff no one else around here wants to touch, but a straight drop away from a house, will send a limb backasswards and into a piece of siding, or a broken dead branch will lauch itself accross the street into a Lexus.
Its the "easy" ones that get us all the time.
Fence crusher...I feel your pain, and gladly welcome you to the human race.

 

[murphy4trees]

You are lucky you didn't get hurt.. The two people I know, that personally told me their stories of getting cut with a chainsaw, both say it wouldn't have happenned if the saw was cutting right.

I do know a couple other techniques for avoiding barber chair. One would be the coos bay, found in Fundamentals of General Tree Work, by Jerry Beranek.. the other is a secret..