How'd it go today?

I know, the few times I've rented buckets I hated that. Usually when I do commercial trimming, I just spring for a high reach, or make the guy I'm working for rent one, they are kind of scary though.
 
I dumped my trailer and my truck. Took my trailer into the trailer place to see about putting heavier undercarriage on it. I also fixed a flat on my tractor. Well I took the wheel off and took it to the tire place.
 
It went okay today .It took those snow plow drivers and country bumpkins tossing rocks at my mailbox 14 years to finally finish it but they did .I replaced it today .

Repaired a Mac 700 and cut some firewood .Used the 200 T to raise up a blue spruce about 6 feet (took the bottom limbs off ).I hated to do it but it was that or take it out or listen to a bunch of nagging the rest of my life about not being able to see what's on the other side of it .It looks okay I guess .
 
Bucket trucks rule. You need one to be seriously in the game around here.

My bucket went through inspection on Monday and the windshield got replaced at the same time(a requirement anyways because it was cracked). Well I'm there when the kids are putting the new window in and I heard one of them mentioning losing a lid to their container of wipes. Well I found that lid this morning while it was snowing on me as I went to head out to work.

Flick on the wipers and they make this horrible noise and then just creep to a halt. I'm like WTF? I ended up having to remove half of the cowling and one of the wipers and low and behold there's the lid for this container jammed/pinched into the mechanism for the wipers. What a piss off right?

Then my new employee half destroyed my arbor in front of my house turning around the 1 ton with the dump trailer. I had to laugh at that point. He's coming by tomorrow on his day off(Good Friday) to fix it, I'll help him. I'll get more mileage out of it as harrassment than the thing is ever really worth. Lol

Killer week for me, new guy is still working out really well.
 
HVAC guys came buy, again, they think they have a fix, I'm not holding my breath. Guy came buy and measured my garage door, guess he didn't trust me, then he left me a quote and said to get back to him. I guess when I told him on the phone the other day to get it done he didn't take me serious?
I just don't know anymore.
 
Slayed gray pines all day. Took the Jeep as it was going to be mucky getting into the pasture. Heck .. most the dirt road entry was washed out. Damn near had it up to the hubs mudding our way in. Left the Jeep at the HOs as we will be going there again tomorrow. The next job for Saturday is a trail that is in between there and home so we'll drop the jeep there tomorrow. Love not having to lug all the gear in 1/2 mile or more over hills and dale. :D Not to mention about 1 foot of mud.
 
Office work, scheduling work for next week, a little shooting the breeze and then off estimating. Gonna work this weekend so's that I am all caught up for next week, it looks like spring has finally decided to sprung.
 
good day of strata maintenance, missed a meeting by being an hour early and not having enough time to spare to stay (arborist apprentice program: ITA, industry and delivery provider get together), home to spend the evening with the kiddo and then watched the first period of the hockey game. For those in the know, that means I had 2 periods of hockey worth of time to get caught up on paperwork, the home team sucked rocks tonight, like they did 2 nights ago.
 
Dang, Chris. There wasn't anywhere to hang a block and use some sort of mechanical means to drag the logs up the hill?

I spent my day chasing hangers and broken limbs at a big condo property. Must have set up the truck 40 times or more.

There was NOTHING. They were lakefront trees and almost every single house on that lake is built into a steep hill. There were no other trees to block off of. The wood had to go 100 yards uphill. The driveway down along the house was so steep I couldnt back the chipper down and load the truck with chips. It would have ended in a blown rear or smoked clutch trying to get out of there. Below is a pic of of rearview mirror. If the truck rolled back 10 feet if i stalled it and didnt catch the brake in time it would go right down over the bank behind it and into the lake. Id like to forget those removals.

lakejob.jpg
 
I filled my truck four time with wood chip. Helped out a buddy on his job, he was skidding with his ASV and grapple, and I was chipping. Boring, dusting, all dead tree knife killing mess.
 
HVAC guys came buy, again, they think they have a fix, I'm not holding my breath. Guy came buy and measured my garage door, guess he didn't trust me, then he left me a quote and said to get back to him. I guess when I told him on the phone the other day to get it done he didn't take me serious?
I just don't know anymore.

Keep a close eye on them. Some are okay but lately I've found most want to rake you over the coals if they can. Wife called me while working today complaining that the house was hot. Called out an AC company to check it out and call me with a price. Get call at 1o'clock that on top of the 90 dollar call out it would require a recharge of R22 at about 500 dollars. When asked why a 10 pound system cost so much to fill I was told " R22 is very expensive and almost impossible to get". I think he freaked when I asked him why he didn't go get it from the local HVAC supplier for the cost of 200 dollars a 30 pound cylinder. Ended up running over myself and getting the cylinder. Just got it recharged and blowing cold again. It's nice to relax in working central air.
 
On that R-22 ,it isn't that rare .I've got a jug and a half in my shed .It was bought about two years ago for a tad over 100 bucks a pop ..Unfortunately my contact came down with cancer and sold out his plumbing biz .So if I ever need any more I'll have to bootleg it somewhere else .
 
Looks like a nasty slope to me Tucker. I was asked to a job like that once. I asked for permission to float the logs and retrieve them at a private boat launch. It was going to also take permits to run the logs in the lake. We also were going to schedule it for the off season to reduce boat traffic hazard. The HOA refused access to the launch so I refused the job and told them to go find someone with a yarder. :lol: As of a couple summers ago (couple years after the fact) the job was still untouched :lol:
Hats off to you taking on something like that.
 
took the wife and kid to my parents place, then I line trimmed, mowed and limed their lawn followed shortly afterwards by me pressure washing some stairs and part of their paver patio.. Now home to supper and a nap if I am lucky. Happy good friday. ;)
 
I stabbed myself with my pocketknife today. :(

It all started with a pinched hydraulic line. Deva or anybody else familiar with the Altec buckets that pivot out will know what I mean. My bucket pivots/rotates out 90 degrees (in order to facilitate working with the winch, but it gives me 3' extra reach as well), but I have to be mindful of the hydraulic lines when pivoting it back because they can flip over the elbow on the steel bucket frame and get pinched.

I ran out of fuel today while stretched all the way out and just folded the upper boom down to come down and refuel. As I got almost to the truck I pivoted the bucket back without checking the lines, then the bucket stopped moving and fluid was spurting out. I hit the emergency stop button (shuts off hydraulic flow to the upper controls) and talked one of the ground guys into getting me down using the lower controls. Only one of the low pressure control lines was broken but it was dumping a lot of fluid due to gravity. One of the guys suggested cutting open an empty gallon oil jug to catch the mess. I said "That's a great idea!" and whipped out my brand new pocketknife. Unfortunately it isn't as sharp as my old one that I lost a couple weeks ago and I ended up sticking it into the base of my index finger. :(

Finger bandaged, oil pan in place, line fixed, and I couldn't get the controls to work because the lines were still pinched. I could run the bucket from the lower controls but the only control for the bucket pivot is in the bucket, and that line wasn't flowing. I ended up having to unbolt the pivot cylinder in order to get the lines unpinched. Took about an hour all told. I had almost forgotten about sharing the story but my finger started hurting while I was sitting here and I figured I would share the tale.

This weekend I'm going to sharpen that pocketknife. ;)
 
Geeez Brian, sorry about your finger and day mang!


Slayed more gray pines and got paid for two days work. Place is done for the season. I will go back in September to start prepping for winter work.
120 acres of plenty to do.
Couple of firsts today......
HOs come up and over the hill we are working on and he got the quad stuck. Big ol muddy patch almost a foot deep of red slickery clay. He thought that since the Willys could go right through it.. his 4WD quad could too... One of those diesel side by side seater deals. Nope... He got stuck.
I drove down and pulled him out with the winch.
Went back up the hill and proceeded to pull over a good sized gray pine that was tripod-ed a tad high on its limbs that I had fallen. We whittled the one side up good enough to pull it rotational to the trunk with the Willys winch. Felt good to have something like that man killer down where one could work on it safely. One of those trees that no matter how and what direction you fell it, it was going to have the butt 10 feet up in the air.
Then there was a limb that had broken off the gray pine the hawks nest in. It too had tripod-ed and was leaning up against the trunk of the tree. Butt was about 20 feet straight up. Got a line in it and pulled it over with the winch also. Now no one will get squished by it.
Down side today was I had a smaller gray pine (20" DBH) roll on me and clobber my thigh with a branch. Moved quick but it still gave me a good charley horse. Close call but I was ready for it in case. Dang gray pines are a pain in the you know what. Multiple leaders going in different directions, curled and twisted.
We might get rain tomorrow, so I went ahead and brought our Willys Skid Steer home instead of moving her to a new job site.
I think I may have also found a hard top for her. :/: I will know more Monday or Tuesday :)
 
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