All in a day's work

[Steve Bunyan]

Over the years I've seen countless elderly gentlemen walk up right next to a running chipper and either try to talk to the ground man or just stand there and watch us work. I love answering questions while I'm bucking wood. With the equipment shut down, these men are far from deaf but they have an amazing capacity for inner ear pain. Some other things that make me love my job are plugged chippers, nails in stumps, and spilling chain oil and/or sawgas on my groin first thing in the morning.(I thought I closed those caps)

Any other humorous happenings?

 

[Dan F]

Spreading mulch one cold January morning in downtown Lafayette.

Mulch is steaming.

Woman walks up and asks about the steam.

My co-worker explained that it was begining the decomposition process.

Her comment was, "Well, aren't we all?".




I'm sure I'll think of more.


Dan

 

[Steve Bunyan]

steaming chips

I've heard people ask if the steaming chips were actually on fire. Spontaneous combustion I suppose.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Coneheads do tick me off, had one drive around the cones, under the pull rope, just when i was finnishing the backcut.

Another thing I love is when I bid a huge removal and find out the guy before me is one fifth the price. How do they keep the machines running? My latest was 2 big DED elms with around 7 more smaller ones under them. Both of the 2 over transmission. I figured the 7 trees were just a bennie to get out of the way, the 2 big ones were 2500 each, haulling the condemed wood to the dump.

Called the homeowner back and he sounds mad at me (Dad of a long time client) he has an offer for 1200, clean job.

My buddy has a large cottonwood with some rigging and haulling of the logs. Figures 950 is fair for the tree and the stump. Homeowner laughs at him, he has a bid for under 500 AND they will haul off the stump grinding debrise!

Hey is that American Tree Service?

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Yesterday I was driving home from the shop along a road that has center islands planted with perennial flowers and mulched with tub grinder chips. As I eased up to the crosswalk I noticed a coil of smoke coming up. Some boneheaded butt smoker had flicked a hot one out the window, starting a fire. Grrrr!!! I'd like to shove that butt back up their butt.

I wrote to the city forester who is a buddy of mine. I told him that I put out a prairie fire for him and would bill the city next week.

On Monday we worked for a client who lives on a cul de sac. We left the van and tandem trailer on the straight street to keep the cds clear. The owner of the house where we parked came out ranting about parking in front, on the public street. They had other contractors leave a mess in the street. They expected that we would park the truck straight up the middle of the cds, from north to south. Not happenin'! My groundie moved the van to the other side of the street. We raked and blew the street like normal. When I got home, there was a voice mail that was about two decibels this side of screaming. Ranting about how they were going to file a complaint with the city if the street wasn't clean enough. Hung up with no name or phone number. Hit 88 to return the call. Quietly explained our policy about not blocking streets, driveways and, most important, fire plugs. Duh? I also explained that my company always cleans up the street. Asked if the street was satisfactory. Of course it was...

Some people complain if they get hung with a new rope.
-Orval Dunlap [Dad ]

Tom

 

[NeTree]

Strangest thing I has lately was a pair of removals about 20 feet apart; a willow and a maple. Customer wanted the spars left at 30'.

Yes, THIRTY FEET TALL BARE POLES.

Why? So she could hang a swingset.

I laughed for hours on this one!

 

[treeman82]

Eric, I had a guy about 2 years ago tell me to cut 2 dead ash trees about 15 feet off the ground, or 20 feet off the ground. He had a 4x4 running between the two of them with I think either one, or two swings hanging off of it.

 

[Stumper]

My weirdest job was the call to grind out several stumps IN A BASEMENT. The contracter had just cut the trees and put in the stem wall and built the house. After the people moved in they decided that they would hand-dig a partial basement in the back where the stem wall was highest. Momma and kids were the diggers but the stumps were giving them fits. There were about 10-12 4" -8' stumps. The hard part was the lack of ventilation. I ran the RG12 through the access door and ran it for as long as I could hold my breath then shut down -gave it a few minutes for the air to clear and did it again, and again and again. I spent over a half hour but mostly it was waiting for the dust to settle and the exhaust to dissipate.

 

[NeTree]

Well now, THAT certainly explains alot....









JK

 

[tjk]

I was removing a parkway tree for a local city all coned off and caution ribbon. A group of high school kids broke the ribbon and ran under the tree. while limbs where falling (very close call). A police officer saw the whole thing gathered the kids put on the cuffs sat them on the curb then called thier parents to pick then up. I loved it.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Storm work in Raleigh NC, Ox and I had the walk wich we were working ove coned and taped wth Sherrills "KILLER TREE" tape. peopl would walk around the barricade and back on the sidewalk, like branches had not been falling down for the past 3 weeks.

 

[TREETX]

Peple are like sheep. If their normal route is blocked off, they panic. Kinda like "Rainman".

I don't do much work in parks, etc anymore. In germany it was a major PITA. We had to have one guy on the job just to "protect" the taped off, coned off, barricaded off areas. Still people get off their bikes, go between cones, barricades, and limbo under the tape.

I think helmets play a huge role here. Obviously those in/near the drop zone, but also the guy 50yards away setting up cones. Helmets just signal,"Danger!"

Nothing amazes me more than human stupidity. You can be 40 ft up in a tree, cutting a monter chunk and people will stand DIRECTLY under you just looking up up while saw dust streams down on them.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

That is when you have to call down
"Were you born stupid, or did you have to work you way up to it?"

 

[Dan F]

More humorous things I've thought of in the last 24 hours.

Company I used to work for last year. We had several Mexican laborers (great guys). We were working around a creek, landscaping it. I found a crawdad, picked it up. Showed to Miguel. In his broken english and my broken Spanish, he got the idea that it was like a small lobster (he was from Aculpulco). Pointed at the claw and said something in Spanish about it, I said, "Si!". As he stuck his finger in the claw, he was able to draw it out before the claw closed. I kinda laughed and gave him the crawdad to take home and put in his aquarium.
Looked over a couple of minutes later and there is Miguel, bent over at the waist, a pained look on his face. As I said, "?Que?", he straightened up. He had hold of the crawdad with his left hand, and it had a pincher hold on the palm of his right hand! Took one of my hands holding the other claw and my other hand to open the pincher!

Company I work for now... We had a 24' extension ladder in the back of the truck for taking down Christmas decorations. It knocked my boss flat on his a** as he walked around the back of the truck forgetting it was there!


Dan

 

[MasterBlaster]

A Climber Friend of mine was pulled over by a Trooper once and his vehicle was searched. His gear was in the back seat and the hand saw had slipped out the scabbard.

The search stopped when the Trooper cut his hand on the saw.

My friend was let go.

He said the Trooper was pissed! And left blood on his gear...

HA!

 

[monkeypuzzle]

How many times have you seen the groundie grab the tip of a branch that is on rope, start to walk backwards away from tree and fall flat because the wimpy little tip breaks. You got to get more limb in your hand dude.

MasterBlaster, you know those nazi troopers are all-ways smarter than you. You ought to see'em get there little panties in a wad when they open the beer cooler only to find a big bad snake staring up at them. The funny thing about it is that the burr-head never asked if he could look inside,just reached over the side of the truck and helped himself. You see just how tuff they really are. Then they get pissed at you.


If you feel the snake thing was a little off topic I don't care.

 

[Crispin Hoar]

Had a scate boarder do a zig zag through our cones and then try to duck under the tape across the sidewalk. Only thing is he missed. He had some road rash and alot of insults and laughs from our crew.

 

[Ax-man]

I'm sure we all have had encounters with Mother Natures little creatures when we do our thing in the trees.

My brother and I were taking down this old Basswood one day.

I decided to take a break from running the bucket truck on this one and let bro do the cutting on this one. There was really nothing under or around it for him to damage , so I needed a change and offered to do the ground work.

He worked the top off no problems, started to work the spar down, halfway down it was apparent the tree was nothing more than a shell of it's former self.

All of a sudden he quits cutting and is looking down inside this tree. I yell up "Whats going up there, why did we quit, haven't you ever seen a hollow tree before. He replies back "There some kind of creature in here, it's got eyes and it is looking staight at me " I shout back " Make one more cut and let's see what happens" Bro dutifully starts saw and proceeds to cut, finishes the cut knocks the piece off.

The biggest racoon I think I'd ever seen came out that hollow tree and crawled on to the platform of our Elliott bucket truck.

I think my brother would have jumped off that platform if it hadn't been for the safety harness. There the two of them were, my brother sitting on the top rail, feet on the bottom rail, the racoon on the other side looking at him like --why did you do this to my house--bro shouts down " What do I do "

Of course there isn't much I can do, I'm just laughing my a?? off on the ground. I did manage to say " Don't move that cage,what ever you do".

Finally the masked bandit decided it was time to go, exited the cage and down the tree he goes to seek out a new apartment.

Brother comes down { I'm still laughing } hands me the saw and says " Here you finish this, I've had it for today, It wasn't funny "
All I could say was " You didnt see it from down here, I wished I could have gotten it on tape "

Ax-man

 

[NeTree]

Boy, does THAT sounds familiar!