anyone out there an aborist?

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Norwegian

Trad climber
dancin on the tip of god's middle finger
Oct 23, 2015 - 07:19am PT
my morning verse:

"come on bones.
wake up! you can't
rest, today, again,
you gotta keep
up with the flesh."

and then after work
i take my super weary
bones to the highs
and beat them
against the mountain
until day's close.

Bushman

Social climber
Elk Grove, California
Oct 24, 2015 - 05:05pm PT

The Euc and I

In a rural eucalyptus grove just outside of a place called Herald, California, this past June I climbed and roped down my last big tree. It wasn't the one that finally toasted the rest of the cartilage in my knee (that happened while trimming out mistletoe in an ash tree, then topping a row of eight 60' Italian cypress trees later that month, topped off with overdoing it on the mountain bike). But after the second arthroscopy on the same bad left knee I'm left with a painful limp and will need a knee replacement in the near future. So I've decided (I really should have stopped climbing trees in my forties) that my tree climbing days are over once and for all.

I know that big Eucalyptus was the last big tree that I personally will ever climb to remove. There's no need for me to be climbing and doing the tree work anymore anyway, I've had a great climber to do the work for me for the past five years now, and he's one of the best tree climbers I've ever worked with. Truth is, I wouldn't be comfortable putting anyone less skilled up in a tree for my company at this stage of the game so close to the end of my career. So when he decides to hang up his harness and spurs, it will be time to close the doors, play with the grandkids, go on hikes, and sit by the fire. It's been a good run, so I think my last hard tree removal deserves a tribute.

The Euc and I

Twin spars up to the sky
Spiral grained and slippery
Her welcome scent like heaven sent
Lithe and graceful to my eyes
Her predecessors from afar
From way afar
Where once kuala bears did hang
Beneath the shining stars

But here now she must go
For pocket book and customer
When weather comes her creaking boughs
Bring restless nights and danger to who sleep below
And now 'twas time for me to go
A gaffin' free for thirty feet
The flip line hanging uselessly
And lead line hanging down below

Now flippin' up the line
I'm limbing as I climb
Then lowering out the heavy tops
O'er saplings with a greater love
And set the bull line for the fell
As ruddy tan green-white Euc bark
Always stains the hands
As ropes run through my tattered gloves

Now swinging to the tallest spar
I pace my haste to set two lines
In four inch forks a happy place to rest my mind
With bull lines on false crotches at forks on highest boughs
I work to lower branch by branch
O'er rooftop climbing up and down
The crew is keeping time with me
Looks like tree ninja's back in town

I feel no hesitation without age or trepidation
'Till the final limbs are lowered out
At six floors up I take my lunch not noticing the heat
Making good time as I want to shout
But see the bare hooked trunk left o'er me
Feeling naked as the tree itself
I scale the twisted snake of wood
There's no choice but to chunk and rope it out

The math has just informed me that
The crooked trunk held everything I just took out
So I'm climbing back up to focus now
Compelled by vulnerability
To proceed with rapt efficiency
And as usual question sanity
Weighing risk against reward
Without pride or undue vanity

After chunking it to forty feet
At three pm last ropes are set and I descend
With two tall trunks balanced to fall
Tomorrow's work we'll finish the job
With bull lines set on come-alongs
Attached onto a chipper truck
And tomorrow's work will be easy felling
For back on earth it's money I'm smelling

Their home will stay intact
A row of stumps attests the fact
It's money earned and pays the bills
But still my heart goes to the old and weathered giant
Never mind more trees shall take her place
I hear it from an inner voice
Who goes there on this lofty brace
To desecrate a hallowed place?

And in many a tree work nightmare
Those trees in all their consciousness
Do stand and ask I pay the price
Demanding retribution
From this simple woodland elf
Who felled the trees for cash they'd say
So ironically one stormy night
They'd crush me while I slept tucked tight

-bushman
TheSoloClimber

Trad climber
Vancouver
Oct 27, 2015 - 08:11am PT

This is the tallest tree I've removed so far. Right on an intersection of two main roads in West Van, plus a popular tourist location nearby, so was in the publics eye all day.
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