Catch up - an overdue update
Things have been insanely busy these last few months and a lot of good things have happened.
Working at treecompany two days a week, second year at treeschool three days a week, preparing for and doing more NPTC tickets and attempting to manage a woodland and take care of life stuff (shopping, meal preparation) has left little time for publishing content these last few months so here’s a SUPER quick whistle stop tour of everything that has happened in my life of treedom. I’ve recorded loads of content, but I’ve not really had much time to write, edit and publish it all. Maybe Christmas will allow me some space to do this.
So here’s the whistle stop version.
Tractors!
I sat and passed my basic tractor skills ticket. So now I am insurable as a basic tractor operator using PTO and hitched attachments. Whilst I don’t have any short term plans to own a tractor - watch this space. Tractors are very useful things in the woodland and forestry.
Treeschool
Practical has dialled up a notch at treeschool. We’re now rigging and dismantling as well as climbing up trees and knocking the tops out of things. Here’s a quick example:
The above photos where taken on the first time I spiked up and knocked the top out of a tree. It was not a big tree, but it was a big step for me. The general idea is that you get up the tree to where the red oval is in the first photo. This is done with a mixture of spikes (I have one spiking video on YouTube - more to come!) and climbing with ropes. Basically, get to the top by any means necessary as long as you’re tied in correctly. Once tied in correctly (two systems and MAKING SURE NONE OF THEM ARE ABOVE WHERE YOU INTEND TO CUT), you basically fell the top of the tree whilst being up in the tree. I tried to take the third and forth photos from the same angle to show the before you cut and after you cut. The top falls out, there’s a MASSIVE RUSH of adreneline and you wobble about a bit. It is absolutely fecking thrilling. You can see this in the last picture – that face is joy and adreneline in one moment at the top of a tree.
Here’s a small video of some content from me dismantling a dead pine in the first week of December. I describe what I’m about to do to the dead tree when I am at the top.
Tree company
I’ve been working two days a week at a local tree surgery company since September. I’d have previous used these two days to produce content, hence the lack of content, but it’s nice to be generating a small income into the business again. I’ve learned an ABSOLUTE tonne working at a domestic & commercial arb business. This is not to take away from treeschool and what I’m learning there, but it is different. I’m learning production arb work. Everything from rocking up at the yard at 8am, getting the kit ready to go, setting up the job, working the job, handling the waste, doing the clean up and the tear down to getting everything back into the yard and getting home for a reasonable hour.
You couldn’t teach this stuff – it has to be learned first hand.
I am now a “qualified” tree surgeon.
I’m careful with that phrase because qualified is a strong word, but in the first week of December I passed my “Chainsaw from a rope and harness” ticket. Basically I am now commercially insurable to climb a tree and use a chainsaw to freefall limbs and branches to the ground. Now I just have to crack on and get excellent at climbing. Once I do that and with a few years experience, I can go and do my rigging and dismantling and aerial pruning tickets. However, for now, to all intents and purposes, I am now a “qualified” “professional” tree surgeon in a theoretical sense. In an experience sense, I am a green. Not a total newb as I’ve done some climbing and cutting at treecompany, but I am certainly green.
First Injuries Up a Tree
It was a very minor set of injuries, but they all happened inside of 30 minutes and all using handtools whilst up a tree. If you are sqeamish, look away now. I was up a very small cherry tree, doing work to make it “more tree like” after it was heavily pruned a few years earlier. Cherry trees really don’t like heavy pruning and their response is to kick out a load of shoots. Here’s the before and after.
Whilst doing this job I cut myself twice with hand tools. The first one was with a pair of RAZOR sharp secateurs. I was holding a branch, didn’t pay attention and snipped the inside of a finger wide open. Here’s the cut the next morning.
The cut was nowhere as bad as it could have been, but it did force me to come out of the tree in an emergency situation style as my first aid kit was on the ground and my co-worker was at the front of the house. The tree was small, very small so I didn’t have an access rope as I used ladders. However, those ladders were taken away once I was up the tree as my co-worker needed them to get up a tree in the front garden.
Luckily my lanyard was long enough to get me down onto the ground so I could patch myself up. There was a lot of blood, none of which I dropped on the customers patio. I got down, patched myself up with my first aid kit and cracked on and got back up the tree. Then as I was not paying attention again, I cut my second finger tip on my right hand using my handsaw. Very dumb of me. However, it was just a mild cut, not much blood and I was able to patch myself up in the tree using my first aid kit. Four lessons were learned that day:
Access rope: no matter what size a tree is, ALWAYS have a straight line down to the ground.
First aid kit on harness: always have your first aid kit with you on your harness.
First aid kit stock: always ensure you have the right bandages and gear to treat minor wounds as well as catastrophic bleeding.
Hand tools are dangerous: I could have easily cut through a tendon or through my bone with the secateurs. I was fortunate I got away with a warning shot.
Lessons learned.
So that’s the quick tour of the last two months. Whilst I have been capturing content, I have not been publishing anything. I do aim to change that!
Thanks for reading, apologies for the delay and as always, I appreciate your attention.
Cheers,
Jamie.
Wow Jamie, try to be a bit more careful will you?…you’ve got my skin crawling with that nasty cut