Summer limb drop

[John Paul Sanborn]

http://home.wi.rr.com/sanbornstrees/sumer limb drop/

The limb in the pictures is from a white ash. Property belongs to the mother of one of the people I subcontract to.

Limb was approximately 14m up, 11cm dia and 4.6m long.

Top 2cm shearded off near clean the rest peeled off.

No defects in the sheared area were noticable on the ground portion or the aerial stub (which got
lost in the jungle below, no pics of it.) With the exception of a small patch of whiter wood, that
resisted probing with a steel tool, somewhat visable in the sheared face JPG.

Limb drop occured aproximately 2 am on a calm night in the high 80s, daytime temps have been in
the mid-high 90's. Pictures were taken approximately 15 hours after limb drop.

IMO the visual data seem to support the theory of ray cell collaps being a major factor in SLD.

 

[DDM]

John? Think we could use the Standard Measuring System? Metrics give me a headache.
Maybe a flock of Large birds landed on it.

 

[geofore]

white ash

Did limb removal for the neighbor three houses up the street from me last week. Ash was less than 2' from one house that gets a new roof this week and 14' from the house that gets a new roof on the garage next week. They split the cost but wanted the limbs out of the way for the roofers to work. They were afraid of the limbs dropping on the roofers. Took out everything dead and two live limbs. It was nuts, every time I dropped a limb the guy with the garage runs out with his electric chainsaw to cut up limb and I have to stop. A four hour job turns into two days. If they pay, I'll stop to let him have his fun.
John, those little specks in the last pic, are those bore holes about 1/16" dia.? The ash here gets buggy with little borers, the center goes bad and then the limbs drop. There is usually green on the limbs a year or two but they aren't safe to stand on.

 

[Stumper]

Geofore, What a nut! I put up with that sort of stuff for a couple of limbs in the name of public relations. If it is a sizeable job I ask them politely to stay out of the way. Incidentally, how many of you guys have walked off of jobs when the customer acted nuts/got abusive? I've done so about 3 times in the last 15 years.

 

[Reed]

Walked away from kooks and nuts?

Brings to mind a large San Antonio job a few years back -

Red McCombs - auto dealer extrodinaire, sports team owner, pitifully bad rancher, real estate mogul, soon to be billionaire......

We set-up for a week of pruning his liveoaks. Two climbers, five groundsmen, all the equipment - many loads of chips hauled-off. Around six thousand bucks total, but only got $2,500.

The last day, he had his butler (real English dude with a penguin suit and lispy drawl and limp wrist) park a brand new convertable Rolls Royce Silver Shadow right below me - in hopes of my dropping so much as a crumb of ball moss into it so he'd be free of payment responsibility (I was ditifully warned of his business habits). I asked for it to be moved but the butler wouldn't answer the door - saw both Red and him peeking out the window. I though about log chaining the ???? car outta the way but didn't. I climbed instead and finished the tree and kept from loosing so much as a leaf below me. It wasn't easy nor was it enjoyed.

Month later we still didn't get payment - asked a lawyer to represent us, "no way" was the response. Red's a god I guess but I was still upset. We tried court litigation on our own, no headway there either. Went to talk with Red (after pushing my way past his butler dude) and told me point blank - "I didn't get this wealthy from paying bills, try suing me again".

I stormed out, went got my gear on, threw the rope up that live oak where the Rolls is still parked below (with top down) and skirmied out that overhead limb, pulled my handsaw out of it's scabbard and proceeded to cut a wonderfully heavy 3-inch oak limb ten feet long that positioned directly over his piece-of-crap $140,000 automobile. Red came yelling out (in his silk bathrobe) into the running sprinkler system falling down on the slippery sidewalk, yelling and screaming obsenities up at me to stop. I did too, halfway through the cut. I returned a loud verbal "Are you gonna pay me?" He replied......"Yes". I wished he would've said NO to tell you the truth.

The cops drove in right when he signed the check. I tried to explain what was going on but Red interrupted me with a "It's okay officers, just a false alarm". I had to get back up there and sacrifice the limb, but the butler certainly moved the Rolls outta the way before I did.

I spent a great deal of my time the next year before leaving San Antone spreading the word about Red to anyone who would listen. Just because one's wealthy doesn't mean we need to cowtow to their demands. I've had much more wonderful times and successful work sweatin' for normal folk.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

My folks were RVing some place and a succesful middle-aged couple were next to them. In one of the conversations she said that they had gotten stiffed so many times by people in his contracting job that she figured it was their turn to screw the little guy.

I like your attitude Reed; mucho caljones, Hombre!

 

[CJ-7]

Sunday morning at 11:30, 80 degrees, no wind, a 3" dia limb dropped 40 feet from a 40" dbh cottonwood straddling my property line. Leaves were full and looked healthy. Neighbors 20 feet away were on their deck drinking coffee. The stub hit 4" their side of the property line and went 3" into the ground. I don't think they realized what it could have done had it hit them. I never saw this happen before until I read the post from John, 2 days later, boom. Hmmm.

 

[TREETX]

isn't that just what cottonwoods do?? I have watched sudden limb drop cases over the years and try not to pay much attention to them because they scare the hell out of me. I have seen cases where a 10'' live oak limb has just detached for no aparent reason w/ no defects. Being that tree failure is my biggest CLIMBING nightmare, I really try to block it out. I read about an Australian student who was studying this phenomenon for her Phd.