How'd it go today?

Today's help just called in sick and nobody wants to work, yay

Was supposed to haul my machine on his trailer since it's a super steep spot I've gotta unload at and he has a mesh ramp, not sure what I'm gonna be able to do besides wiggle into the one level ish spot, guess we will see
 
$2400, done by 2:30, 2 trailer loads of brush to the dump

wish I had that G1200 today, would have been much nicer than the boxer for this one
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I saw my first American chestnut today. It’s pretty much a yard tree so it’s fairly bushy (first picture). The homeowner intentionally planted this.

Saw my second American elm. Both of them displayed pronounced trunk flare. Not sure if this common to the species? The homeowner wasn’t aware of what it was and was delighted to know. (Second picture)

Then I saw an Ailanthus butt up against a walnut (pretty sure on the walnut ID) I first thought “that’s the largest tree of Heaven I’ve ever seen!” Wanted more pictures at different angles as some of the structures were impressive but felt odd pointing the camera towards someone’s windows. I’d like to remove the Ailanthus to assist the walnut. Ailanthus suck.

Pretty cool tree day for doing plumbing.
 

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Didn't do much today. The job we went to has a chestnut that I'll do a canopy raise on to allow getting a drive in and trucks to get to the site. I have about a month to get it done. I didn't feel like it today. It's full of little chestnuts. I didn't think about while I was on site, but I was just wondering if they'd fit in an apta. That could be pretty fun :^D
 
Had a small job to do today with a buddy. I normally don't work Sundays but I only worked 1 day this week so I didn't need another day off. We needed both the chipper and my loader, but only one truck available to pull. So I used the new aluminum ramps I picked up last week and loaded the Avant in the truck. We were blowing chips on site so no worries about getting the loader home without a second trip.
Well my buddy had a tire blowout on his rented Penske truck and was stuck waiting for the service truck coming from Lakeland, so I ended up doing all this myself. Started at 8, finished at 1. First two pics were 90 minutes into it right after I blew out the tip on my small saw. Did the rest with my Husq 372.



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sitting here debating about tuesday/wednesdays job
might go rent a mini ex for tuesday, we are ripping out about 50ft of vine infested chainlink fence, an old massive satellite dish, 2 vine covered trees (unidentifiable), and a few shrubs around a house, its a very urban job so most of the work is from the street, wedging the bucket into a tight back lot and dropping brush on/around the truck, im thinking the excavator will be nicer to manipulate stuff, we can tear the yard up all we want too, theres already a rolloff bin dropped in the road we can use for logs and the scrap metal/vines
I can do the job with my boxer, I just really want to play with the excavator and see where it fits in for me on my jobs, for $300 a day who thinks its worth it? 8K mini ex, rental place is 15 minutes away, I have to call and see if it has a thumb, and the mini ex will move the dumpster much easier if I need to, which I probably will have to for access to one tree

what say you guys?
I should mention, its a corner lot and most if not all the work can be done from the road with almost zero traffic
 
sitting here debating about tuesday/wednesdays job
might go rent a mini ex for tuesday, we are ripping out about 50ft of vine infested chainlink fence, an old massive satellite dish, 2 vine covered trees (unidentifiable), and a few shrubs around a house, its a very urban job so most of the work is from the street, wedging the bucket into a tight back lot and dropping brush on/around the truck, im thinking the excavator will be nicer to manipulate stuff, we can tear the yard up all we want too, theres already a rolloff bin dropped in the road we can use for logs and the scrap metal/vines
I can do the job with my boxer, I just really want to play with the excavator and see where it fits in for me on my jobs, for $300 a day who thinks its worth it? 8K mini ex, rental place is 15 minutes away, I have to call and see if it has a thumb, and the mini ex will move the dumpster much easier if I need to, which I probably will have to for access to one tree

what say you guys?
I should mention, its a corner lot and most if not all the work can be done from the road with almost zero traffic
Mini ex sounds better. If you have the money in it, why not?
 
Zinan, that's exactly the type of work where my root rake grapple excels. My machine would do all that in an hour or two and load it in the dumpster as well. My machine LOVES ripping crap out of the ground!

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Zinan, that's exactly the type of work where my root rake grapple excels. My machine would do all that in an hour or two and load it in the dumpster as well. My machine LOVES ripping crap out of the ground!

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lots of chipper feeding too tho, only 4 little shrubs that could *maybe* be pulled out by the roots
im thinking bring the mini ex for day 1 and do all the "dirty work" with it, then for day 2/chipping whatevers left bring the boxer
tell ya what tho, those articulated loaders are AMAZING for feeding a chipper, im probably 5 or 6 times as efficient with the Giant than the boxer
 
Mini ex sounds better. If you have the money in it, why not?
thats my thing, ive bid what I feel to be plenty high on the job, BUT do I really want to take 2 hours to pick up and drop off a machine, paying a guy to do that, plus rental fees?
ill check the business bank account after buying fuel tomorrow and let it decide, I feel its a no brainer so long as its got a thumb
 
yall aint going to believe this

"the city" is going to do the job now instead of me
those trees arent anywhere near city property, im fairly doubtful the city is removing a bunch of trees and a fence for free, in someones backyard
I need some ideas for contracts, im sick of this, was a few hours off getting an excavator, already had help scheduled, now everyones pissed off
 
on a good note, for $265 a day I can rent a CTX160, maybe ill need that on one of these jobs, rental yard is next to my saw shop so I had to stop and take a look
 
$265/day for that Vermeer? Closest Vermeer dealer to me is 90+ minutes away either SW or NE of me, and they want extra for their root grapple, on top of being $300/day. My Toro dealer only has the TX1000 & TX2000 for rent (number is their operating capacity.; new TX1300 is not worth it, even if they had it), and they want $285 for mine, and over $400 for the big boy (thing is huge; would need to move it on my dump trailer, and doesn't fit through 70% of fences around here). Bobcat is almost worthless, only the MT100, and while they operate nice and intuitively, start at $350/day, plus attachment. And I really hate the local dealer.
 
$265/day for that Vermeer? Closest Vermeer dealer to me is 90+ minutes away either SW or NE of me, and they want extra for their root grapple, on top of being $300/day. My Toro dealer only has the TX1000 & TX2000 for rent (number is their operating capacity.; new TX1300 is not worth it, even if they had it), and they want $285 for mine, and over $400 for the big boy (thing is huge; would need to move it on my dump trailer, and doesn't fit through 70% of fences around here). Bobcat is almost worthless, only the MT100, and while they operate nice and intuitively, start at $350/day, plus attachment. And I really hate the local dealer.
Its a local rental yard, 240 a day plus tax, no attachment
Same place with the 10k mini ex for 365 a day
 
***EDITED for lyrical improvement***

POV: LIving in Arizona with 105-115 degree weather every day for a month.
*Sings along to the Annie musical tune*

When will the sun NOT come out
Tomorrow?
Bet your bottom dollar
That tomorrow there'll be too much sun!

Just thinkin' about
Tomorrow!
Burns away my skin cells
And my retinas; let's hang it up!

When I'm stuck with a day
That's scorching and oppressive
I just stick out my middle finger
And grin and say, oh

I wish the sun wouldn't come out
Tomorrow!
So pray for rain and cold fronts
Wish for snow and frostbite!

Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I hate how hot you are tomorrow!
I wish you would cool the f*ck down!
 
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Went to the newly acquired clients home (the one with the largest paulownia in the state according to a county official) to do some storm cleanup this evening. I’m pretty sure there was a microburst. Large 50lb tree chunks were 100’ from where they were snapped off.

Quite a few locusts down as well as a poplar. A Norway maple will have to be removed as it sustained too much damage. The thing is 4-5’ dbh. The paulownia sustained damage but will live. Makes me think I should have offered him an end weight reduction. It had decay from a previous break close to the trunk. Could have cabled it also. He’s not extremely attached to the tree though.
 

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been out looking at storm work all day, power was out half the day, passed probably 2000 trees down (rough guess, didnt count)
friggen crazy
looked at 5 maples, a white oak and a pignut hickory
oak was hit by lighting, stump is 13ft10 roughly, 40ft tall stub 4ft in diameter with limbs, in a golf course lawn and they guy wants the stump dug out and replaced with fill dirt, graded so he cant tell it was ever there of course, he also has a smaller ~40ft maple that got hit by lightning 300ft away, if I recall it was the same day
2 maples snapped off on houses, one for an old customer of mine (second stump my stump guy did for me, also his banner photo on his company page for a year now)

one uprooted hickory that missed a house by less than a foot, the guy moved in from out of state yesterday
it missed the house fine, wrecked 2 sections of aluminum fence, and a hump in the ground saved it from wrecking his inground pool, tops in the drink but no concrete cracked as far as I could tell, easy access too
replaced tomorrows job so we have work, and ive got more storm stuff to attend to after that across town

saw a ~36" silver with the whole top ~60ft snapped right out, rotten from the inside out like they all are

what. a. day
power went out and not 5 minutes later my phone rang non stop for the next 6 hours, got home at 8pm
 
That was a nasty storm system that blew through. Lost the top third of an Ash out behind us in the border wood of the park land. I have a rope in the one next to it, as it is leaning toward our property. Time to get it dropped.
 
Made a property inspection, and everything looked pretty good. Lost a dead oak limb, and a couple smaller nut laden walnut branches, but no problems. I woke up a couple times last night to weird noises, but I don't know if it was outside, inside, or a dream.

I need to start thinking more seriously about my locusts before it bites me in the ass. I think I'm gonna top the one this fall, and see if there's something reasonable I can do with another one while retaining decent foliage. It's really time for complete removal, but I like having them there. I want to try to keep them as long as possible while reducing risk.
 
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