Taupotreeman

Careful mate, you let this stuff get too far into your head and it can really screw you up. You never know what might make you snap and what you will do if you do snap. Suffered from anger problems for years until it got to the stage where I wanted to go out and kick the preverbial out of everybody for the slightest little misdemenor. Suddenly realised I had a problem and had to get some help for it. It sneaks up on you before you know it.

There were some dodgy doings going on with them before I left then they just disapperaed. Curiosity is now getting the better of me.

My strop is a permanent feature of my harness. Nothing worse than getting halfway up a tree to find the strop is still in the kit bag and you have to go down and get it so it very rarely comes off the harness. As to whether I use it all the time? I'd say about 95% except for when I have a perfectly safe crotch or something to stand in. Time was when free climbing was all OK as long as you had three points of contact but these days my common sense is greater and my gonads somewhat less steely. I prefer to go home at the end of the day for the sake of the extra time it takes to double up.

woodpicker, what happened to Read & Co? I used to work for them up in North Wales. I know they were bought out by Asplundh and that I believe Asplundh pulled the plug but can you shed any more light?

Now that's how I remember my apprenticeship.

Skyhuck, many of the people that are wanting the trees trimmed are those that have moved in to a property where the trees are already well established. Some of the trees are over 50 years old, the properties about 10 to 15. Around the lake edge are council reserves where mature Oak trees etc can be found with the crowns reduced by about half to accomodate for the view. Most of the trees do not block the view in its entirety anyway as the house sites are elavated but people can get quite vitriolic if they don't get the full 180 degree view unobstructed. I also think there's a fine line between not upsetting rate payers and cowtowing to every little wish and whim of some of the rate payers with more financial clout than others.

Harnesses? What harnesses. Most of the time we didn't have one. The saw was attached to your belt. I finally advanced to an indoor climbing harness, which makes me wince when I think about it but that's what happens when you have no training and no idea what you are doing. Ropes, if you were lucky enough to have one, were the 3 strand though I can still remember being given a hemp one. All the brash was thrown in to a big cage trailer and then mulched down regularly with a saw until the trailer was full. It was then tipped out and burnt once the brash pile had taken over the entire field. The ropes we used for lowering were massively heavy 2 inch shipping ropes or something like that. 3 strand again and stiff as wire rope almost.

Skyhuck; this is the lake, although this is from the lake edge, so you can draw your own conclusions about the view. Believe it or not I have had several people ring me and ask what is suitable to use as a poison and how to apply it to their neighbours trees because they are blocking the view. I have one resident group at the moment taking a neighbour to court because she refuses to trim her trees down to return the view to those above her.

Janey - replanting obligations vary from council to council and with the government recently changing the resource management act there is now less protection for trees. Council here has this archaic agreement that they will trim trees on COUNCIL land to keep the views of property owners, even if that means butchering the tree. Monkey-D - couldn't agree with you more. I've tried to talk the council into leaving the dead stumps of poisoned tees (as long as they are not a public hazard) for 2 reasons. 1. as a natural habitat and 2. to stick it up those that are trying to get the tree removed by poisoning it. Unfortunately, many of the burbs here are affluent and the property owners think it is their god given right to have an unobstructed view of the lake. Tree poisoning happens on a regular basis and it doesn't matter what type of tree, how rare or what aesthetic value it has etc. If it's in the way it's fair game. Most issues occur (like this one) when the view is obstructed when the owner is looking out their window or sitting on the deck having a BBQ. It also seems many of the councillors don't have a clue and don't wish to upset their rate payers.

I and the neighbours below know exactly which house benefitted as do the local council who have had a bit of a running battle with the aforementioned home owner. Problem is, we can't actually prove anything. It's more than annoying and this isn't the first tree to suffer and it sure won't be the last.

As half Pom half Kiwi there's nothing better than seeing an Ozzy cricketer squirming.

ALL OUT!!

Unfortunately, I think so. I tried to talk the council into leaving it standing as it is just to stick one finger up to the donkey who did it. I don't think it will fall over in a hurry but it's in one of the more affluent suburbs and the neighbours are likely to complain about house prices being affected etc.

Bottled out of a job before I even got it today. Abgout two weeks ago I priced to dead wood some biggish gums growing out of the pumice embankment on the lake edge. The trees are between 50 and 90 feet tall with another 30 odd feet of embankment below them. Went back to have another look at them today to check to see if they've grown another 20 feet in the last two weeks (as they do) only to see one of the bigger ones halfway up the bank has uprooted and is now in the lake. No wind, no heavy rain, it's just decided to go over. Apart from that, yep, I've had a couple that, on second viewing I've decided were just to dodgy to deal with. So far I heven't frozen up a tree though. I turn my music up louder and squeeze the butt cheeks a little tighter.

Who was the newbie who put the gob cut in the wrong side?

There's a couple of threads already going on this and I believe one of the climbers was 50 odd so you've got a way to go yet. I'm 40 and even if I give up on the self employed bit I won't be giving up on the climbing. It keeps my muscles loose and I suffer less aches and pains than when I was in the office. Plus I like being outside away from people. Trees don't answer back and they are never negative. You keep going until you decide in your own mind that you've had enough.

Several months ago this Council listed tree (on council road berm) was poisoned by one of the local home owners because (we think) it blocked the view of the lake. The tree was drilled and poisoned over night. The tree had been monitored since then and was seemingly making a recovery from whatever poison was used (roundup being the usual flavour of choice) and we thought we might be able to watch it recover fully. Sometime during the early hours recently some bright spark figured that as the poison hadn't done the job he/she would try a more permanent solution (again, we think) and this is the result. We have a particularly dry spring in Taupo so the tree was reasonably dry. We are assuming some type of accelerant was used but this is most likley not bored teenagers but somebody who didn't want a tree obstructing their view. How pea brained and pedantic can some people be?

Meindle's are definately the dog's dangly's but I found the Klimba air tirrols seem to be more waterproof even though, as far as I know, they don't have gortex or similar. The Meindles are warmer by far though.

I can't see it as having work stolen. You quote for the work and you either get the job or you don't. Sometimes you lose out to a rival company but they don't steal the work from you it's just the way it goes. I have to deal with mowing contractors who think they can trim a tree and at knockdown prices. The customer usually comes back to a pro once mr mow has butchered her tree. On the other hand; I often take down trees for a knockdown price on the understanding I can have the wood. It just depends on how bare the wood shed is looking at the time so I suppose I could be accused of stealing work off the other contractors around. If the other guy is only taking the wood offer to go round and clean up the greenwaste for a good price or, talk to the fella himself and see if you can work in with his jobs. Offer to provide a price to do the clean up for him after he's knocked the tree over. You never know, you might get some easy work out of it. When I first started out there was a local axe man who had won a small fortune on the stihl timbersports circuit. His winnings had paid for all his gear so often he would do jobs for the wood (firewood being his retirement money) and I couldn't compete. Rather than griping about it I rang him and explained who I was and what I did and now I actually use him for the big jobs as I can undercut the competition due to his low prices and he's happy to use me to put strops and winch cables up the trees that he can't deal with on his own. He passes all climbing jobs my way and I pass the fell only jobs his way. The customer gets a good service so always comes back to us for repeat work and some jobs he doesn't charge me for as he might have a tree needing my skills so no money changes hands. It actually works really well.

Plus it would mean less noisy neighbours if it happened quickly enough

Crikey, I can think of heaps of wishes but off the top of my head; I wish that the global population would begin to reduce so that we could save many of the wee beasties we are currently putting into extinction by our expansion and so that we could secure our future resources such as food and water. Estimates of the global population by 2050 are about 9 Billion. At some stage we'll probably eat ourselves into decline. Is that a bit too serious?

Ha, just spotted Jake the muss. Sweet as.

Yeesh, that would have been a bit un-nerving.

Almost 9 at night and just had to go down the river again to cool off. The cloud has come in so now it's both hot and very muggy.

Arbtalk is addictive so I end up staying on here longer than I intend . Swim finished but might have to go again as it's so bloody hot. Taranaki and New Plymouth are pretty much the same region. New Plymouth is the main city in the area, right on the coast. Taranaki is the region or district. Bit like County and city in the UK. New Plymouth is about a two to three hour drive from me through some pretty rugged country. The naki is dominated by Mt Taranaki which is a dormant volcano. From what I've seen of it it's a nice place to be but there's not to many shabby places over here to be fair.