the 'todays job' thread

[Dan Maynard]

10 hours ago, kram said:

Unsure what the roots will be like but I've offered to dig these out with the mattock and make it nicely flat.

Conifers like that not usually too deep, too late now but next time if you're digging yourself then leave a stem on each stump as a lever. Nowadays I'd grind them, but you have youth on your side - just keep digging and chopping.

[openspaceman]

36 minutes ago, Dan Maynard said:

Conifers like that not usually too deep, too late now but next time if you're digging yourself then leave a stem on each stump as a lever. Nowadays I'd grind them, but you have youth on your side - just keep digging and chopping.

A high lift jack can be handy for shrubs like that but you do need something to grab with a chain or get under with the beak.

[Stephen Blair]

My finest reduction yet.

 

[Rich Rule]

Delicate.

 

Lovely work mate.

[kram]

22 hours ago, Dan Maynard said:

but you have youth on your side

40! Youth left me with my hair 20 years ago.

 

I do have a secret weapon. A very heavy sledge and a sharpened leaf spring. It will cut and lever any small  stubbon bits. Pic from a previous job.

If you cant get to the roots you can smash through it below ground level.

 

I found most of the roots small and some rotten, there was one large 4-5" root on one side, very odd! Didnt take long to smash.

 

 

Helped customer with tipping, she has a nice small van.

[AHPP]

Apple. It was much bigger, banging into the conservatory, loads of the apples unpickably high and up the middle etc. Read the various orchard threads on here and conferred with an enthusiastic contributor to them. Brought it back in to a working shape in something like five prunes over three years. Managed to not scare up shitloads of regrowth by doing it piecemeal, one big one per zone and let it settle sort of thing. Did a bit of bending and wedging/tying to pull branches into empty spots. All the tricks I learned from here. What a useful website. 
Anyway. I’ve called it reinstated to working form and told the guy to get a silky and maintain it himself from now on. He’s pleased. I’m pleased. 
 

 

There are a couple of branches that offend me now I look at the picture. Can only assume there was a good reason to leave them on. You had to be there, man. 

[sime42]

Nice job. Wish you'd taken a before as well as after picture. 

 

 

[AHPP]

I'll have some somewhere. Ask next year.

[kram]

Small woodland job. Theres a few nice oaks around it but mostly filled with poplar, some cherry and birch, and lots of coppice - possibly hazel, not sure without the leaves.

 

My job was to fell several windblown, some birch with polypore, cut away the ivy from the big ones. Keep it woodland, keep habitat, but make it nicer, safer.

After lunch the owner asked if I could show him how to use his new battery chainsaw, that he will use for firewood. Showed him the very basics of using a saw safely, got him to fell a few of the small dead birch.

 

The ivy was odd stuff. It wasnt the normal climbing ivy  seen everywhere, that grips the trunk firmly the whole way up.

This ivy that looks like it has dropped down from above. Its lightly attached near the ground then dangles freely up to the canopy where it tightly wraps everything. Anyone know how it gets up there?  Perhaps it grows independantly then into the canopy?

Or perhaps it starts attached to the tree, then as it matures, lets go with just the canopy attached.

 

Enjoyable day, hopefully going back in the week.