How'd it go today?

[forestkeepers]

Big storms rolled through our area last night. Not a lot of rain, but high winds, some thunder & lightning. Windows were rattling, making it hard to sleep. But at about 3 am, a limb broke in the alley from a neighbors tree, knocking out the transformer with a big fireworks show. So our whole block was without power till about 9 am when the power company's bucket truck showed up and the lineman pieced the limb up with his power pruner. Going out for a walk today, saw the city's contractor picking up brush. I cleared some from sidewalks. No major damage that we encountered, mostly downed limbs.

 

[Burnham]

Good to hear you are aloft again, Stig. Excellent.

 

[pantheraba]

Got the kayak ready for the triathlon tomorrow. Our Dive Team does water safety for the annual triathlon at the local State Park. We probably have to rescue at least a dozen people every year. They only have to swim about 300 yards...out to an innertube and then back. Some folks are in trouble before the go 50 yards.

They do heats of about 30 people each heat. Drives us crazy trying to be sure no one slips under. The first year they released heats too quickly...probably had close to 100 people in the water...only about 8-9 of us doing safety. Needless to say we had prayer meeting with the nimrod that was turning folks loose for the heats. He was a real idiot...when I told him someone was going to drown his reply was, "Isn't that why y'all are here...to recover them?" I really wanted to tear his throat out at that point. A real dumb feck.

Anyway, they are getting better on running it but it is still a mess...safety for lake swimming is tough...someone slips under and it's hard to know. Thank God it's only once a year.

Once the kayak was ready I messed around organizing the trailer. I have an inverter in my truck that let's me have compressed air whenever I need it...loves me some air. Cleans the saws, gear and me. The inverter will also power lights, fan, etc....gives me 110V power when I need it.

 

[MasterBlaster]

What is that thing on the back of the kayak?

 

[FireFighterZero]

Thats Wilson.

 

[FireFighterZero]

That is an awesome trailer.

 

[pantheraba]

Maybe you mean the half nerf football. I cut a nerf f-ball in half, hollowed it out and tied it to the yak...I end up in the middle of swimmer's and don't want to knock someone out with the kayak.

I get some footage each year of the swimmers...thus the "GoPro" on the front.

This is the safety meeting before the meet 3 years ago. Start listening at 0:50 and hear the idjit at 1:05 tell us we just have to recover someone if they go down.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qfa0IPXDe2s" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[pantheraba]

Thanks, Jim...been trying to get / and keep it organized. Adding power has helped. It houses tree gear, dive gear and tools. Still need to build some kind of workbench/shelf in the nose to organize the nose stuff better.





Here is a kayak-cam from 3 years ago...you can see rescues at 4:00, 7:00 and 7:47. That's the year they kept sending in groups of swimmers before the previous group was back and accounted for.

Anytime you see someone on an inner tube means they were having trouble...some really poor swimmers try the swim.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lPdGagaqkcM" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[cory]

Crazy footage.

The bamboo pole in pic 1, does it have a particular use?

 

[pantheraba]

Good eye....yes. I use it for stretching (a type of yoga I do before things strenuous) and for walking when we do land searches. Sometimes have used it for stability when ingressing and egressing some of the search areas we do for dive team searches. Just getting to the water in dive gear can be a challenge sometimes. Once in the water it's easy...walking with gear on can be difficult.

1. Stretching
2. Stability
3. Then there is always "striking".

 

[cory]

 

[Burnham]

Ah, yes...there is always striking .

 

[forestkeepers]

Storm Damage

Big storms rolled through our area last night. Not a lot of rain, but high winds, some thunder & lightning... No major damage that we encountered, mostly downed limbs.

We got called up for emergency service today, clearing a broken locust leader that had smashed an ash tree, which dropped limbs on the neighbor's house. Done in a couple of hours, then the rest of the afternoon did some maintenance on the chipper & truck.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Mother Nature = MONEY

 

[forestkeepers]

Mother Nature = MONEY

More cleanup work on the homefront. First job of the day was to remove a Siberian Elm from off a roof. It was a neighbor's tree, smashed their fence, and our customer's roof as well as his deck rail. It had severed his power lines, too -- but the power company had already come out and re-attached the lines. So we had to work around that, but it went pretty text book. A little chunking up, tension relief of some limbs, then winched out large spars and a couple large branches. Done in a little over an hour.

Then we pruned a rock elm off of a chicken coop roof (the city allows fowl in city limits), as well as deadwooding a red bud. Cleaned up some additional fallen Mongolian Elm branches for them as well.

Then we chipped the brush for our neighbor (from our weekend power line outage), as well as another small brush pile for another customer. Then on to top a row of cedars at 7', due to fire hazard concerns (very close proximity to the house) -- but the customer still wanted some screening. Also deadwooded a couple of pin oaks for him.

Then back out to a pruning job from last week. Customer wanted one more leader off of a locust, and raise the crown of a hybrid maple (Autumn Blaze?) to let in more light to the yard.

Sounds like we have about 15 small cleanup jobs lined up for tomorrow! Mother Nature sure was busy over the weekend, meaning we'll be busy all week!

 

[MasterBlaster]

Don't get rich too quickly! You'll just spoil yourself!!!

 

[Fiddler]

A buddy stopped by to get his chainsaw sharpened last night...stopped cutting as soon as it quit making chips this time...he's learning...

A dozen free-range eggs and some venison backstrap in trade Breakfast...

 

[flushcut]

Not a bad deal! Hopefully the chain wasn't completely trashed.

 

[Fiddler]

It wasn't too bad, compared to the usual disaster he brings over. He'd hit the dirt a bit while bucking.

 

[pantheraba]

That NEVER happens around here.....

 

[Fiddler]

NEVER suspected it would Gary

Well, truthfully the dirt may have been in the bark...it was pretty flooded this spring down where he's cutting...

 

[pantheraba]

Good new excuse....thanks.

 

[Tree09]

Yeah I'm gonna steal that one too

 

[forestkeepers]

My favorite response:

But, it's soft dirt!

 

[FireFighterZero]

Farming selfie.