Week Five...Still Alive

Hello All!

This past week was my fifth and final week of my internship. Even though my hours are completed, I am still working the rest of the summer with my employer. I will most likely be posting about the following weeks just for fun, even though it's not required. I found that I was given a raise during my second week back. I didnt even notice until last weeks paycheck! I went from the agreed $10/hr up to $11/hr. What a great surprise!

Monday, we started the week with another huge slaughter job. We were hired to cut down about 16 trees, that included some Oaks, a Poplar, a Pine, and a Maple, to make way for a pool being put in. This is the second job that we have clared an entire backyard to make way for a pool. Needless to say, it was rainy and humid and the wind was blowing. Most of the trees we were able to set a line in and pull over by hand or with the hand winch (called a come-along). We do this by running a rope through the crown of the tree and back down the backside of the trunk. It is then tied off to the trunk with a running bowline. The other end is pulled on while the cut is being made. I did get to climb one of them. It was a medium sized Oak. I spiked up teh tree, set a line and went crazy cutting brush. It was fun. The reason we didnt crash it was because it was too close to a red-maple clump the homeowner wanted to save.

Tuesday, two of my co-workers, Nick and Greg, attended a safety conference in RI that lasted all day. While they did that, my boss and I went to Upton to prune part of a Norway Maple hedge. I did all the climbing on this one. I threw a line and tied into the center tree of the three needing pruning. I climbed up, maoved to one of the side trees, and raised all the lowers. I then swung to the middle tree and did the same, climbed back up, moved to the last tree, and did the same. When I was done, I swung back to the center tree and cleaned up the stubs I had left as steps. We raised the lowers so that her garden could get more light.The homeowner also left us a bunch of brush to chip besides the mess we made. So, we cleaned up the big mess. Before we could finish, our chiper glogged. Wet leaves mixed with the fact that we didnt clear it properly was the cause. So Dwight and I spent the next 15 minutes unclogging it. We decided that it was good timing and we went to get a coffee. We came back, finished chipping, and started on the next tree. This tree was an old Golden-Chain Tree That was hollow and very structurally unsound. So, we put a cable in it and removed an old metal tie that was put in by the homeowner. I also pruned off a lot of deadwood in it as well as a large branch that had cracked and fallen, but continued to grow.

Wednesday, we went back to the worksite from Monday, and finished the job. Nick was sick, so we were down to three guys most of the day. The log truck came in at the end of the day and picked up a good portion of the wood. The other smaller wood was taken by a neighbor for home heating.

Thursday was a good day. We started by doing a small pruning job. First, I pruned a spruce tree. I took out the top to reduce the height and encourage spread. Then I tipped bak a few branches that were very long up top to encourage a better shape. I then moved on to a sandcherry. I pruned it away from the house, reduced the height, and then my boss came by and took a few more cuts in the front showing me what could have done to help keep it in its own area. Then I moved on to the next plant which was a Japanese Pagoda tree. I took off some wild looking branches ot the top and tipped back a few of the side branches while my boss did the other half of the tree. There was also a Japanese Maple and two birches that my boss pruned while I was doing the others. We chipped our brush and headed to the next job. The next job was a huge Norway maple that needed to be cabled and pruned. My bass one I were in the tree for the rest of the day, setting up a 5-cable hub and spoke system. This is where we cable each leader to a steel ring centered over the base of the tree. We also took some weight cuts off the ends and cleared some deadwood while we were in the tree. It was a fun job, but long and exhausting. Thankfully it wasn't raining, but it was hot and muggy.

Friday was a short and laid-back day (like most fridays at Full Circle Tree). We first went and did some pruning in Upton. I pruned two large leaders off of a Mulberry tree one of which was over some shrubs and a shed. These are difficult to deal with because they tend to be heavy and brittle. My boss pruned a small oak and started a small ash tree while I did the Mulberry. I went to the side yard and front yard when I was done and pruned a Weeping Cherry, then I took a couple weight cuts off of some Ornamental Pear trees. I also removed some lower branches to allow for lawn-mowing and walking on the front walkway. We chipped everything, then went out to breakfast in Douglas. After the food, we went actross the street and pruned a couple of Hemlocks in front of the Post Office. We hand sheared them and clibed them to give them a haircut at the top. We fished just as it started raining, so we called it a day.

My internship at Full Circle Tree has been an awesome learning experience for me and I hope that the rest of the summer is the same. In case I don't post again, I wish you all a happy summer! I cant wait to get back to Unity to teach what I have learned!

Peace,

T-Bo the Treewalker

PS: Check back for photos on this post, I am looking for my SD card so I can upload them.