What Is The Freakiest Thing that Happened to You In a Tree?

[Ax-man]

I had to do a removal of an old rotten Catalpa that was in pretty bad shape. The kicker on this one was it was also an apartment complex for a colony of honey bees.

After conferring with a local beekeeper I was surprized to find out that the tree could be cut down with no one getting stung. All I had to do was pick a bright, sunny day with low humidity. Lucky for us this job came in May, perfect weather here for cutting bee trees.

The main colony was in the spar, after dropping the spar they were swarming all over the place. Some one still had to cut it into three pieces. After they settled down my brother volunteered, to do the cutting.

This was a sight to see, tree cutter cutting on spar, bees swarming all over the place, honey comiing out of the cuts, honeycombs falling out the ends. It was amazing to see this and he never got one sting.

We even had to handle and load the logs to get them off site. Even going down the road those bees wouldn't abandon their colony.

It was just amazing that no one got stung that day.

To bad hornets don't share bees disposition when it comes to invading their turf. Nasty Hymenoptera 's these guys are.

 

[MasterBlaster]

We had to transport a honeybee log on a flatbed trailer to the dump a few years ago.
Driving through town, stopping at the red lights, it was funny watching people roll up their windows - REAL FAST!

 

[Base]

Strangest thing to happen to me whilst do tree work was that i had to dismantle some lawson cypress's in a grave yard, anyway the person who was on the commity for the church came round and was being a pain in the arse, anyway after he disappeared, i started having a good old ????? f'ing and blinding and from then on every time i went to use my mobile it would switch of... never happened before this time or after i left the site only while i was on site......a little spooky

Base

 

[Lumberjack]

i started having a good old ????? f'ing and blinding and from then on every time i went to use my mobile it would switch of... never happened before this time or after i left the site only while i was on site......a little spooky

Base


What?

 

[Base]

I thought a few maybe confused as the mods decided that some words could not be put in but for you confused ppl out there basically i was swearing huge amounts

 

[MasterBlaster]

Hey Base, theres a way to get around that if you can phucken figure it out.

HA!

 

[njarbor]

the comment about the diver in the tree is an urban legend . i havent had anyhting freaky happen to me yet. but one time a squirrel did jump from the branch about a foo from my face

 

[jblimbwalker]

I read this thread about a week ago and thought to myself, "Hmmm, I've never had anything weird happen to me other than the occasional run-in with various wild life in a tree." Well, an old friend/peer of mine asked me to relate to our new climber the story of my stolen dirt bike. Alas! I remebered, I have had something 'freaky' happen to me in a tree. While trimming a poplar one evening I heard the sound of a dirt bike riding around. I thought this was strange since we were working in the ghetto in a heavily populated area of S. Atlanta. I didn't think much more of it until I saw the bike ride by on the street below me. It was my bike. Stolen from the 'show-up' off the back of my pick up. I was and felt helpless, thinking "how am I going to get my bike back?" It was almost quitting time and I figured I would play it cool until we knocked off for the day and then it would be time to reclaim my bike. We pulled into the show up and I discovered they had dumped my bike off the side of my pick up (friends' car was blocking tailgate of my truck) severely denting the truck. After a call to 911 and being put on hold for 10 mins. I decided I would turn vigilante and do it my way. I drove my truck back into the hood and rode around, listening and looking for a green Kaw.KX 250. Nothing. I decided it was time to leave (starting to get alot of strange looks from the locals) so I headed out, took a wrong turn to get out of hood and there she was, on top of the hill. Two idiots on my bike, trying to kick start it, about a hundred yards away. By this time I was ready to kill. I made a beeline toward 'em and hit them, on my bike, at around 30 MPH. They were both thrown from bike and landed on road/yard. I grabbed the closest one, but before I could exact justice I noticed my truck was starting to roll down aforementioned hill. Had to let him go and stop my Chevy. Truck stopped and bike lying in middle of road. The story of me loading the bike back on my truck is a tale in itself. Sorry this was so long, but jeez, a condensed version would be boring. Freakiest thing that ever happen to me in a tree.

 

[mikecross23]

Take a mans child, sleep with his wife, but DON'T steel his DIRT BIKE!!!

 

[Curtis James]

I ran into a baby racoon and a bee hive all in the same tree. It was a mighty white oak towering the homes below. It lost it's top in some serious head line winds. I was boomed over both and only removed injuries from the storm. it was still freaky.
I also made my final cut in the removal of a lage limb off a silver maple, i was going to see how bad the hollow was when two squrrels came leaping out. I cut the limb all the way back till the only thing left was a whole big enough for just them. imagine my suprise and their fear. the saw getting closer and closer with each cut.It was a gassss!

 

[Crofter]

This didnt happen to me but it really freaked the old guy. A hunting party bushed their truck about 50 miles up an old logging road late at night and were sure they were there for the night. The truck was too much on a tilt to be comfortable in it so old Stew. decided he was going to make a fire. He took saw and went a short way into the ditch and cut down a dry cedar stub so he thought; problem was he couldnt find the tree. He staggered out to his friends and tried to explain but stuttered so bad they accused him of being drunk. He said nnno, the ssstumps ttthere and the cccccccccchips but no ttt tt tree. He wqs so insistent that they took a lantern and went to discover that he had cut off a telephone pole and being in a gully the tension in the wires popped it up and it was hanging about ten feet overhead. Stew was relieved because he was just about to swear off drinking.

Frank

 

[Koa Man]

Some have mentioned leaners or other times when the tree have stood back up after taking off some weight. What I usually do is tie an "anchor" line to the branch so that when the weight comes off, the branch or tree does not kick back and take me for a ride. This is especially true on trees like banyans that have long horizontal laterals that extend 40 or 50 ft. and are like 12 in. in diameter. Even as far as 10 ft. from the tip, when that weight comes off, the branch will bounce up about 4 ft. Do expect to fly off that branch. I have always found something I can tie off the anchor line to. A couple of times I had to run a line horizontally along the ground between two anchor points and then tie the anchor line to it. Take up as much slack as you can. When the weight comes off, no bounce. Your ground crew can then undo the line and release the pressure, hopefully they will do it gradually or it will all be for naught.