Apologies for derailing the gun control "rant" but some of us have been doing some work.
I am glad to be sitting down writing this as i am buggered. Even my hands are sore as i type. I wasn't supposed to be working today but i had a ton of stuff to get finished. We had finally cleared our backlog of emergency callouts with all the strong winds we have been having. It has been a hectic last 3 weeks is all i can say.
Since it is school holidays at the moment we have been doing a lot of large dangerous removals at many schools due to the litigation issue that has surfaced again in the media recently. It has really snowballed since the child died from getting hit by a falling branch a while back. Around our area they have really been savage but very random in their assault on tree removal. Trees that were not in high pedestrian areas or near buildings and had not been given any priority by ours or any other arborists reports were labelled for removal, while trees that were labelled by us as medium to high priority removals, due to proximity to high traffic areas and visible damage and defects were left completely alone. WTF?? Some of these trees had to be seen to be believed. 30m eucalyptus with a 30 degree lean over an often frequented basketball court that has visible collar rot and evidence of white ant infestation is left to stand, while the 2 adjacent trees that are in a low traffic area and are visibly more healthy are removed? I know that the department of education are running scared and simply responding to this assault of litigation by simply deciding that removing any and all trees they see fit is in the long run cheaper for them than loosing court cases due to students or teachers suffering serious injury or death. Again it is a case of bureaucracy gone mad. One of the high schools we have been working at just looks crap. Like a concrete jungle. We have removed so many trees that it looks almost complete devoid of life. If many of these trees had been better cared for and maintained while growing almost many of these problems could have been avoided. Some trees we have removed are over 100 years old and the schools are left with ugly and barren concrete landscapes, as obviously these trees cannot be replaced in the short term. Due to the threat of litigation the schools probably will not be allowed to replace these removed trees with anything larger than shrubs.
This was me at a local school 5 minutes away from where i live, working today clearing up the mess of a couple of medium diameter eucalyptus that we dropped a few days before. To the left of shot alongside the euc trunk next to my ute is the schools sports field. Both these tree had a significant lean towards the sports field. Both had advanced collar rot and extensive black ant nests that had hollowed out many large branches. They also had white ant damage in the cores of the trunks. Unusual as white ants and black ants are usually not found in similar parts of the tree. The termites however had moved on and only left the evidence of their presence.
Easy to see the extent of the rot in the tree from this shot. This one was infested with massive nests of small black ants.
No, before anyone asks, i did not fell it with the 346XP!
I was using the stump as a work bench as she's not oiling properly at all and in this tough hardwood i was cooking the chain. Lucky i spotted it straight away and switched to the more ruggedly reliable Dolmar. I will have to pull the Husky apart and see whats up. It has started leaking bar oil when sitting since i got home also. Probably where the oil lines join the pump i am guessing?
We had a bloke we know come with a tilt tray to collect the trunks as it was just too time consuming for me to cut it all up. He has done this sort of thing for us many times before. He broke his winch cable trying to get the trunk section in front of the stump onto his truck. He was not a happy camper is all i can say. His language would have made a sailor blush. I let him be as i had nothing to offer to improve his mood.
A lot of core rot visible in the trunks here. Some large branches were really hollowed out, some around 80% hollow.
Nothing to do with the job really, just a shameless plug for Treestuff and the awesome Dolmar 5105!! It saved my bacon as if i continued with the 346XP i would have toasted a few chains and bars with it's refusal to oil today.
I had my climb helmet on the whole time i was cutting as it was bloody windy and my head was freezing with just a cap on. Might have looked like a sunny day but it was only around 10 degrees C max all day. Add in the wind chill factor from the southerly wind coming off the snowy mountains and it was chilly to say the least! Just glad to have it done. Not sure what we are going to do about the trunks but that isn't my worry. I guess i will find out soon enough.