Worked for my tree service buddy today. Second day (he was short a guy today) taking down a severely rotted black oak. Freezing today 22F. I got to use the 500i!! That thing is a beast!! Got a truckload of beautiful rounds for 2023 winter.
Thanks. I'm so exhausted. He wants me to work tomorrow and it's supposed to rain. I hope it rains. Hahahaha.
Nice! Is that you up in the tree? Full day? Do you get paid paid or just in firewood? All kidding aside, it looks lie fun. Id love to spend a day with a crew.
I was on the ground. Only the boss was up in the bucket. It was fun but now I'm 100% sore after sleeping 11 hours!
Black oak is in the red oak family, which is great burning wood of course. I got into some last year, the orange under bark is interesting. That's a good opportunity. Did you pick up any pointers on cutting down trees that you didn't know?
Well this was a MASSIVE tree. At the base I think it was like 45" or something. The core was all dry rotted and the way this guy works is to cut slices off the trunk at an angle and tie it with a rope. So there's one or two guys holding the rope and he uses the existing limbs as support for cutting down the limbs. By the time we got down to the main trunk it was low enough (maybe about 25') where he could just push the slices off the trunk (or have it slide off because of the angle cut) without a rope. Houses around here are so tight to each other that cutting a wedge and doing a backcut is very risky with the driveways being so close too. So I get why he does it that way. When he dropped the huge white oak at my house he did do the back cut since I have a little room to work with. I wanted to learn how to tie the rounds with the rope but there wasn't really time for that. It was 100mph from 8:30 to 3:30. I did manage to do some untying of the rounds after they got dropped by watching the other guys. The mini skid steer was pretty cool too as I got to operate that just for a hot minute in between real operation. 4 controls I used - joystick for the tracks, one to open and close the claws, one to raise and lower the arm, and one for the throttle. I think there's one to rotate the claw around too but I didn't get a chance to try it out.
That is pretty cool to learn something new and reap in a few benefits while you are at it. Even at my age I would be tempted to try some of that especially if I got a nice load of wood.
Learning never stops if you put your mind to it. I think a lot of people forget this and think learning stops after school. Good on you. I want to end every day with the thought "Cool, I learned something new...."
I take it you got the day off with the ice over there? Great day too. I love firewooding when its cold and dry. Wet and sloppy not so much!
LordOfTheFlies, that sounds like fun to me, I would have loved it! Of course you pay for it that evening and the next day, but in the words of John Mellencamp, it hurts so good. I hate being stationary, to me it's so important to keep busy physically and mentally. The day you stop learning, will be the day you die.
Yep no work today. Too dangerous. I barely was able to walk outside. Used my pail of fireplace ash to dissolve the ice instantly. Sun was awesome when it came out. Today is miserable. I agree! And yes it was a lot of fun and yes it hurts so good...I slept really well heh heh. Went to bed at 8:30 and got up at 7:30.
No sir. Home watching the kids. School district had 101 staff/teachers call out on Monday because of COVID.....so everything is full remote this week.....and I'm guessing it's going to continue like this for a while.
I quit my normal job back in 2014. Watching the kids, getting firewood, fixing cars, cooking, fixing all kinds of stuff around the house....that's my job now.
