The Lemon Fool

Today I had what turned out to be a 35 year old tree cut down. I do not feel sorry about that because it was too big for the spot it was in and every time we had a gale I did wonder if it were blown down whether it would affect my house. Turns out it was a couple of metres short but even so.....

I knew the guy who was doing the work and he is just the most decent fellow I could have employed. Maybe it is because he is his own boss and works in the fresh air all the time but I find these people to be the most balanced of any that I know. Much better than say a plumber, an electrician or a roofer. These people get out into the real world and work!

I have a few more trees that are definitely on the watchlist but will leave them for now. Sadly that are all evergreens and not really suitable for my woodburner.

Dod

Dod101 wrote:
I knew the guy who was doing the work and he is just the most decent fellow I could have employed.

Maybe it is because he is his own boss and works in the fresh air all the time but I find these people to be the most balanced of any that I know.

There really is something brilliantly satisfying to spending time chopping trees and branches down.

I spent most of Tuesday up a tree at the bottom of my garden, climbing about 15 foot up it with the initial aid of a well-secured ladder, and introducing the tree to my Ryobi pole pruner -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ryobi-RPP182020-Cordless-1x2-0Ah-Battery/dp/B07BFF8LTK

By their very nature, jobs like this come with a heightened risk of danger from a large number of different avenues, and having honed my skills years ago by completely removing a huge poorly fir tree over a period of many enjoyable summer weeks, it's clear that taking a calm and methodical approach to this type of work is absolutely the correct way, with anything but a 100% clear focus on the task in hand likely to lead to unfortunate results in a fairly regular way.

I strongly suspect that what you've seen here with your calm and balanced chap might simply be Darwin's law of natural selection at work in this field, with all the less balanced workers 'encouraged to leave the industry' sooner, through the resultant pain of their heightened level of risk taking...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Itsallaguess wrote:
There really is something brilliantly satisfying to spending time chopping trees and branches down.



Itsallaguess

Kaiser Wilhelm II would have agreed with you. It became his hobby and consolation, proudly celebrating cutting tree trunk number 12,000 on 19th November 1919, I have read*


Arb.

*Blood and Iron, Katja Hoyer.

You could always plant another or a few more in a better place or help with a local project with their tree planting.

I arranged a collection of acorns with some local school kids, planted them in a pen and used the saplings to start a woodland.

We ended up with some 13k of new trees over a few years often with classes coming out and doing a planting session.

Is that education or slave labour

Gerry557 wrote:You could always plant another or a few more in a better place or help with a local project with their tree planting.

I arranged a collection of acorns with some local school kids, planted them in a pen and used the saplings to start a woodland.

We ended up with some 13k of new trees over a few years often with classes coming out and doing a planting session.

Is that education or slave labour

The trouble with trees in gardens is that they are fine when planted but in a few years they outgrow their welcome. I am very happy to be 'green' and have planted quite few trees in my garden over the years and so far they are more suitable than a 30 odd foot conifer. It was not exactly a thing of beauty and was cutting out a lot of sunlight. Where I live i need as much sun as i can get!

Dod

We have a lot of trees.

Dod101 wrote:The trouble with trees in gardens is that they are fine when planted but in a few years they outgrow their welcome.

We had 20 or so Lleylandii removed in the last few years, but also sadly a 200 year old Oak. The reason for this is it was hitting the house and the roots were affecting the foundations, mainly because nobidy had trimmed it, ever. 2 others of similar age were heavily pollarded to preserve them, and we've had the old Walnut trimmed gently a couple of times.

We had a 60 foot conifer blow over about 15 months ago, went over the lane and the path in the neighbouring woods. A seemingly healthy tree, apparently caught out because it was the only thing in leaf nearby and the wind came from an odd direction.

11 years ago the Parish was given some land next to us and planted 3000 trees of various sorts. They have no maintenance plan, and there are probably over 1000 Apsen alon there running riot, growing in clumps of 30-50 off their runners. We probably remove 100 a year from our 'lawn'.

And this is the thing - "plant a tree, save the planet", but like many of these ideas that are of great benefit to the community, the on-costs are not provided for. Scout huts, church roof, theatres, etc, they all need an income stream, and that is sadly lacking these days.

Paul

Gerry557 wrote:
Is that education or slave labour

Could that be a Boolean or?

Good effort though!

Used to have a decent sized oak at the unkempt end of the garden (on the boundary/fence line between us and the next place) and I always felt bad about mowing anything that took

Itsallaguess wrote:I spent most of Tuesday up a tree at the bottom of my garden, climbing about 15 foot up it with the initial aid of a well-secured ladder, and introducing the tree to my Ryobi pole pruner -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ryobi-RPP182020-Cordless-1x2-0Ah-Battery/dp/B07BFF8LTK

By their very nature, jobs like this come with a heightened risk of danger from a large number of different avenues, and having honed my skills years ago by completely removing a huge poorly fir tree over a period of many enjoyable summer weeks, it's clear that taking a calm and methodical approach to this type of work is absolutely the correct way, with anything but a 100% clear focus on the task in hand likely to lead to unfortunate results in a fairly regular way.

And wearing a helmet and using a well secured harness, as the professionals do, helps massively.

https://www.landmarktrading.com/product-category/climbing-equipment/harnesses/tree-climbing-harnesses/