murphy4trees
Addicted to ArboristSite
It's been a while since i posted here on AS, so I wanted to catch some of you old heads up on the news here...
Bad news first.... ( i know MM is gonna have a field day with this one)
I was sending my men down south last fall, a couple weeks before Thanksgiving, to grind stumps in south florida after the hurricane. I got a call on Friday afternoon at 4:30... "we just flipped the trailer"... Would you please repeat that... cause I can't believe what I just heard...
There was piece of retread in their lane... driver swerved to miss it and the trailer started fishtailing. Jumped off the hitch, emergency trailer brakes kicked in and spun the whole unit. When the trailer got sideways, it flipped twice with a 2004 Rayco Super RG-50. This all happenned on I-95, 15 miles north of the fla/ga state line, in friday afternnon rush hour. Thank God no one was hurt and no other vehicles were involved.
That shut the whole deal down... The 7K it took to fix the machine was just the tip of the iceberg.... Probably a total hit of 25K or more including lost profits...
That hurt!
Now for the good news. I AM BACK... Ever since I got Lyme in '98 I haven't really been climbing the monster trees. Mostly because I didn't have the physical conditioning to do them and get up and work the next day. Fortunately I have had some world class climbers helping out on a part time basis and it all worked out really well.
Last summer I decided to make a big push for self care. Cleaned up the diet, weight and cardio training, yoga, hebs and supplements etc.. I dropped 25 lbs, and 4-6" in the waist and was feeling great.
So I just got into a couple of really big trees over the past couple of weeks and there is no doubt in my mind that with all the new gear, friction hitch, spliced eye rope, better climbing and hand saws, blocks, slings, foot locking, GRCS etc... that I AM faster and safer than I have ever been.
I know a lot of you guys climb big nasty trees everyday and may think "so what".... but it means a lot to me to come back this strong. A lot of what I do now has evelved from things I learned here on AS.. So thanks to all of you for sharing so freely. It made a big difference.
Bad news first.... ( i know MM is gonna have a field day with this one)
I was sending my men down south last fall, a couple weeks before Thanksgiving, to grind stumps in south florida after the hurricane. I got a call on Friday afternoon at 4:30... "we just flipped the trailer"... Would you please repeat that... cause I can't believe what I just heard...
There was piece of retread in their lane... driver swerved to miss it and the trailer started fishtailing. Jumped off the hitch, emergency trailer brakes kicked in and spun the whole unit. When the trailer got sideways, it flipped twice with a 2004 Rayco Super RG-50. This all happenned on I-95, 15 miles north of the fla/ga state line, in friday afternnon rush hour. Thank God no one was hurt and no other vehicles were involved.
That shut the whole deal down... The 7K it took to fix the machine was just the tip of the iceberg.... Probably a total hit of 25K or more including lost profits...
That hurt!
Now for the good news. I AM BACK... Ever since I got Lyme in '98 I haven't really been climbing the monster trees. Mostly because I didn't have the physical conditioning to do them and get up and work the next day. Fortunately I have had some world class climbers helping out on a part time basis and it all worked out really well.
Last summer I decided to make a big push for self care. Cleaned up the diet, weight and cardio training, yoga, hebs and supplements etc.. I dropped 25 lbs, and 4-6" in the waist and was feeling great.
So I just got into a couple of really big trees over the past couple of weeks and there is no doubt in my mind that with all the new gear, friction hitch, spliced eye rope, better climbing and hand saws, blocks, slings, foot locking, GRCS etc... that I AM faster and safer than I have ever been.
I know a lot of you guys climb big nasty trees everyday and may think "so what".... but it means a lot to me to come back this strong. A lot of what I do now has evelved from things I learned here on AS.. So thanks to all of you for sharing so freely. It made a big difference.