This week, I was serenaded at work by the sound of chainsaws outside my window. No, I didn't have Bruce Campbell making a guest appearance as Ash from Army of Darkness – we had a crew come to cut down some dead trees in the lot between our building and the road. Most of which, for some reason, seemed to be located directly outside my window:
For those of you unfamiliar with how to cut trees (yes, there's more than just taking an axe/chainsaw to the bugger!), one tried-and-true method involves securing the top of the tree with rope/cable so you don't have the sucker crashing down on you or others around you. If you have other trees nearby, you can use one of them as a pulley to keep the tree vertical once you cut the base – otherwise, you secure the line to a nearby heavy object so your tree doesn't fall in a direction you didn't want it to go.
In the picture above, they've already looped and secured the line around the tree on the left, and are now pulling it up and around the tree on the right. I thought they might have a problem since the loop on the tree they're cutting was taut, but had hooked around a branch so they couldn't tighten it as much as they probably normally would. The guy on the left is going to hold the line while the third guy cuts the tree at the base – the intent is to keep the tree vertical after the cut so they can just lop off sections of it until it's so much firewood.
Unfortunately, the loop wasn't secure enough…as soon as the guy with the chainsaw had cut through the tree, it started to topple over. The one tree branch the loop was straining against snapped and while the loop contracted, the tree fell sideways. The guy on the right in the above picture went running pell-mell out of the way to avoid getting brained.
As you can see here, the loop finally caught the tree before it went totally horizontal, and the guy on the right is walking back to help out. I think they might have been making fun of him for running away, but heck, if a few hundred pounds of dead wood was about to come crashing down on me, I'd be running too.
The crew finished cutting the rest of the dead trees without any more close calls, but it was really hard for me not to keep watching, just in case they had another "incident". I have a feeling this kind of work is more dangerous than it looks, if you're not careful. I'd be interested in seeing what their training and safety guidelines look like.
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October 18th, 2007 on 3:58 PM
Primitive Screwheads if you ask me.
October 18th, 2007 on 4:54 PM
eeep.
October 19th, 2007 on 2:53 AM
reminds me of the day i got to work and found an armed, fairly plain clothed, Sheriff in our office parking lot. We were at the top of a hill and the back of the lot had a natural ground helipad on it – used by fire (for brushfire water drops), sheriff choppers, and the odd non-ID'd helicopter.Shortly thereafter, more armed (with rifles!) sheriffs appeared. Word is that someone went to lunch and observed about 15 of them hut-hut-hutting across the street and into the valley below us.By mid-afternoon, a large truck had been parked near the helipad. And a sheriff's chopper started hauling out MASSIVE bales of vegetation. Some people thought it was just routine cleaning of storm drains. I pointed out that drain cleaning doesn't require armed Sheriffs. Turns out it was one of 7 GIGANTIC marijuana farm busts in the area.Watching everyone pressed against the glass, making jokes about it all being directly below my boss' apt, playing "how would you know it's pot?!?" – it was one of the most interesting days I ever had at the job.(the others would include my first day – and walking past the "Beware of Rattlesnakes" signs; the day a hawk nearly landed on my head; and the 2 days that I had to walk over dead tarantulas to get to my car)
October 19th, 2007 on 8:31 AM
Ooh, great story…I want to hear those others….have you blogged them in the past, or do you plan on doing it in the future? :-)
October 19th, 2007 on 4:53 PM
That's about the entirety of the stories, right there. I worked in an area between Los Angeles & Ventura counties… just north of the Paramount Studios ranch (where they filmed shows like Little House on the Prairie and M*A*S*H). The area is "high desert" that's been over-developed – so we had occassional probs with rattlesnakes (usually babies – but those are the most dangerous because they don't control their venom), tarantulas, lizards, and the occassional coyote. I never have figured out what the hawk was up to but it was clearly aiming for my hair and "bailed out" about 2' before landing on me, swooping just a few inches above my head.Even now, working a different job in Orange County – which is low desert/valley area, overdevelopment has led to a lot of "there's a coyote in the parking lot" incidents. So far, no mountain lions – but we know they're around too.