A lifelong buddy and lifelong tree guy in California recently sent me a picture of a Ponderosa pine that had sort of failed in a windstorm. The pine in question had twisted off at ground level and was leaning against the eave of a three-story house at about a 50 degree angle. Now for the cool part: The stem is about 48” at the butt and the diameter where it leans against the roof is about 3 feet through. It continues for about 100 feet past the roof and the top is full of brush! Yikes!
Before it failed, it was about a $3500 removal, it has now become a removal cost well into 6 figures!
It will require two 100-plus-ton capacity cranes, installation of 1” trench plate on top of the WHOLE driveway to support the 2 giant cranes and a climber with a set of spheres of steel to get this nightmare down safely. Oh yeah, and a big basket of luck!
All tree guys and gals start their career with two baskets; one basket is filled to the brim with luck. The other basket is the experience basket, and it is completely empty. As the years roll by you are pulling out a unit of luck from your luck basket and putting it into your experience basket. Some day you are going to run out of luck and you better damn well have enough experience in your other basket if you expect to witness the next sunrise…
I told my buddy to tell his climber to not bother wearing any underwear on the day of the removal as he would probably need to throw them away at the end of the day anyway, and it led me to my next million dollar idea!
Brown underwear for tree climbers! If you climb long enough you will need them at some point, I think they will sell like hot cakes!
The old adage of “I’d rather be lucky than good” will only hold out so far down the road…
Spring is about to spring into life so get your fruit trees done now if you haven’t yet, in fact now is the best time to prune any non-conifer.
Stay tuned, and as always, plant high and often…
