How'd it go today?

Grendel said:

I think I finally bid a tree job correctly.

Click to expand...

Oh, you mean you've got money left over for beer?

Nice looking stump Peter.
Good luck Jim. I'm only allowed to do that for a few hours at a time. Any more than that and I'm pretty sure the police or fire department would show up. At the moment all three of them are playing just dance on the wii. Smells like the boy is dancing to hard. Back to daddy duty.
Sam don't it feel good to get one right? I'm gonna pm you after I change a butt.

Man oh man it's been brutal here. -10 to -15c for overnight lows. Basement stove has been running for four days straight I think?

Plowing, sanding, chimneys. It never stops!

Shit, I have my AC running!

Mowed lawn today...way later than usual for he last mow...I hope it's the last.

Finally dry enough to get the tractor out on the golf course tomorrow 9I hope)and maybe finish up this years season.

Not too bad here. -2 below(F) for the low.

Its a dry cold you know........

That is frigging cold man. That's like -19c. Bitter for this time of year.

Had an 80' oak removal today. Big leaner up over a half million dollar house with a slate roof. Guy just had new gutters installed last week (after I sold the job). My chip truck is still in the shop so we had to chip into the trailer. Work area was tight so we got the chipper in place and disconnected it from my pickup, then got my pickup out. Then when I was backing the dump trailer into place I ran over an irrigation valve located 6" off the edge of the driveway and broke the pipe.

Client's wife and 18 month old baby were home so we shut off the water and started working on fixing the water break. This is where the entire day went pear shaped. The valve was sandwiched between two elbows, and those were sandwiched between two more elbows with none of them having enough pipe in between to cut and patch the pipe. Ended up having to replace 4 elbows and the valve. Went home to get my PVC pipe cutters, glue and what fittings I had. Then to Site1 to get the remaining fittings and the valve. Then back to the job. My glue was dried up so back to Site1 for glue and back to the job. Got the old assembly out and started gluing. I had all 1" stuff and it was 1.25". Back to Site1 to buy more fittings and a piece of pipe. Then back to the job. By the time we got the valve fixed it was 11:45 so we took lunch and laughed at just how completely bizarre our day had been so far.

Started the removal at 12:45 and everything went pretty smoothly considering our tight work area. The only damage was a dead stick that broke out and dinged the new gutter. Client took the blame for that since he knew he should have waited a week before having them installed. Still have about 5 decent size chunks of wood to pick up tomorrow after we dump the trailer. Got home about 5:30. I had $2200 on the tree plus $200 stump grinding. We still did ok in spite of losing half a day.

Man of many talents...cool you could salvage the day.

Well, at least YOU did it... not your hired man.

Amazing the guy didn't freak over the gutter ding.

IME, the richer they are the bitcher they are.

MasterBlaster said:

Well, at least YOU did it... not your hired man.

Amazing the guy didn't freak over the gutter ding.

IME, the richer they are the bitcher they are.

Click to expand...

I know the day will come when my guy makes a big mistake or has an accident. That's part of human nature and part of having employees. He's the type that owns his mistakes so hopefully we just work through it and do what needs to be done. I can't demand perfection from him when I make mistakes on a regular basis.

And yes, the client is a really cool dude.

Gawd, it got down to 10 below last night.

I am not ready for that, but it is heading this way. Low of 19 predicted for friday night. It has been so nice we aren't toughened up yet.

Its light again, at 7am! I hate waking up in the dark.

Good work Brian.

Stump grinder engine died today.

Turn on the lights, Sean!!!

Skwerl2 said:

I know the day will come when my guy makes a big mistake or has an accident. That's part of human nature and part of having employees. He's the type that owns his mistakes so hopefully we just work through it and do what needs to be done. I can't demand perfection from him when I make mistakes on a regular basis...

Click to expand...

Who are you... and what have you done with Brian???

Raj said:

Good work Brian.

Stump grinder engine died today.

Click to expand...

Machines are easier to fix than people, at least.

Did it do it at an opportune time, like mid-stump?


How's your chipper?

Do you think that its about comparable to a 6" Vermeer?

Wrote some bids/ emails to customers. Set up a bid for today and tomorrow. Probably just go bang over a few doug-firs for this lady on the spot. Put on Ground Only. Some every year. NBD. Try to sell some mini-loader skidding work, as I think her 'helper' is getting older like the rest of us. Moving heavy stuff by hand is silly.

Raj said:

Good work Brian.

Stump grinder engine died today.

Click to expand...

Like deader'n Kelsey's nuts dead or like morning hangover dead?

Like compression is coming out crankcase breather.

what's that mean?

SeanKroll said:

Machines are easier to fix than people, at least.

Did it do it at an opportune time, like mid-stump?


How's your chipper?

Do you think that its about comparable to a 6" Vermeer?

Click to expand...

I suspect the rings are gone on the stumper. It failed to start before a job, i usually warm up the stumper before I remove it from the truck, just in case I have problems..


I've not ever used a vermeer, but my Befco is a drum, I think 24inch, with 2 knives, belt driven feed wheel. I'm looking at replacing the main drive 3 drive belts, B61 with a BB60. It has one of those slip belt type tensioning clutch thingys. Pull the clutch handle and the belts get tighter. only issue I see is the flat part of the vbelt rids in the groove of the main shaft. Double sided belt should transmit power better. I ordered one of those link vbelts, the main drive belt for the feed roller is in two jack shafts. No need to dissasemble those with the link belt.

Hopefully its just rings.

I'm just going to swap out th engine. My GF had a snowblower with the same engine.