Week 5+6=11

Hello All,

Holy moly was there a lot happening.

Week 5 just flew by and I really can’t recall anything of significance.

I lost the keys to my car, and spent most of week six trying to get everything back. 1. Volkswagen sucks my balls, terrible service for this type of problem. 2. Don’t ever lose keys, lose your credit cards instead. The total costs of the key combined came to about 500 dollars. Frustrating.

Week 6 was alright. I destroyed my basic tree climbing test, despite some bad tosses with my throw weight. I’m getting way better at my height and distance, accuracy still is a bit rough. Thursday I rolled around the grave yard for a bit, demonstrated aerial rescue to someone who missed the test and that was about it.

Operations I took my chipper test and passed with flying colours.

Didn’t have labs on Monday cause of Family Day. Lectures was alright. We learned about hardiness zones in urban which is always interesting stuff. Plant Health we just went over the up coming midterm somewhat.

A pretty mellow week compared to the one ahead of me. I signed up for a job interview with a tree service company in BC, which I feel went rather well, so this summer I could be out in BC practicing my trade. It sounds like a really sweet gig, but I need to see if my boss here is willing to bring me on for more money. I got to sort that stuff out soon. I really want to start working.

Bought a set of Bucklite spurs with steel insert Velcro pads in week 5 for $500. It sucks cause it’s just the tip of the iceberg for stuff I want to buy. But hey I have a birthday in 4 days and if your looking to help out your soon-to-be local arborist here is what to buy and send:

Treemagineers hitch climber pulley

Rescue 8 friction break

150′ Poison Ivy lifeline rope

200′ of  1/2″ stable braid bull rope

Couple of Petzl William Tri-Act (HMS) ‘biners

Couple of Petzl Caritools

Petzl Acsenders

Full body fall arrest attachment for my saddle

Throw line collapsible cube w/ 14oz weight

Corona Pony Saw

Couple of 10mm 30″ eye-to-eye bee-line hitch chordage

www.wtsherrill.com is where you can get it =P

And don’t even get me started on the saws I want.

Cheers,

Ross

Eva getting a $140 escort to the dealership

Week Fo’

Hello All,

Another rad week. More mark’s up.

Plant Health care didn’t even go to lab or lecture. Got the stuff I missed in class today. The teacher is a pretty laid back dude, hes due up for retirement so he’s jus’ chillin’.

Urban Forestry I wrote my tree characteristic test, don’t think I did exceptionally well, but I know I passed. I was kind of weak on the tree identification. Lecture was pretty cool, learned about tree biomechanics. I will post some interesting tree statistics as to why trees are awesome in another post. I like to keep these strictly business ha…

Basic was a crap shoot for the most part. Nutted myself Tuesday as stated in a previous post. I re-climbed that tree on Thursday and successfully climbed it and descended through an alternate crotch for my bonus mark… But lost it because I didn’t have my safety glasses. All in all, 2 more challenge tree’s done, 1 to go. Me and my partner also did our aerial rescue test on Thursday, cause we got bored. We were given a scenario, where the arborist in the tree had injured themselves, and we had to go up the tree and bring them down on our climbing line. I lost a mark because I forgot to say a command, but still walked away with 4/5 in 4 minutes.

Operations was better this time. Instead of 3 teams of 2 in one small block, it was just a team of 2 per block. We got a lot more cutting in which was awesome. I also completed my chainsaw lab, and I’m pretty sure I nailed it. The only bitch was we had to rig the tree’s with a throw ball. A throw ball is a very acquired skill that takes time to get good at. I’m better at getting my height, I just need to work on my accuracy, I actually somewhat enjoy the painstaking task.

Till Next… Cheers,

Ross

Pictures!

Me in the Walnut

Positioning myself

Thats the limb I nutted myself on

Lining up my cut

Making my notch

A Woman’s Pain…

You ever see that Family Guy where Peter goes to a womens retreat to get in touch with his feminin feminine side? Well he ends up falling from a tree, hitting a few branches on the way down till one stretches his lip over his head.

Well I didn’t hit any branches, or fall from a tree (F*** eh?). However on my ascent up a challenge tree, I had to ‘shinny’ the last section to get to my ribbon. For those playing the home game… ‘Shinnying’ is when a climber basically climbs the tree by gripping around the tree and pushing and pulling themselves up with their legs and arms, not their rope. *Note* Sometimes very uncomfortable for a male, because of the sensitive anatomy down there (testicles, balls, optimus  prime and the autobots, twig and berries, nuts, cajones, kiwi’s, etc.).

Well on my ascent up the final branch I roped my lifeline improperly, so that I couldn’t advance myself up to the final limb, because I was stuck on a smaller limb. Having no where to go I sat back on my boys in the hood, I think realized a woman’s pain there and then, screaming at my partner to give me slack. After about 5 minutes, I finally was able to slide down the back side of the branch to the nearest crotch. Because it was the end of the day everyone had gathered at the base of the tree to get in their shots, I took it in stride cause it was funny as hell if you think about it.

God it was the worst pain though.

Cheers,

Ross

Week Tree

Hello All,

Had a pretty good third week of school, good weekend too. Got a lot done in my climbing class. Missed some classes though this week, none from what I heard of really any importance, mostly material I already knew by reading.

Plant Health Care is a pretty bogus course, everything is pretty much handed to us on a plate, I missed the lab, but went to the lecture… Boring. We learned about pesticides and labels.

Urban Forest Science, I missed both lecture and lab, but I handed in my tree fact sheet (refer to previous post for that). Talked mostly about the compartmentalization that tree’s use to heal themselves. It’s pretty cool, unlike you and I, tree’s don’t regenerate damaged or infected tissue… Rather they release a chemical creating a wall suspending that point of the tree, while new cambium grows over the wound, or natural growth just over takes the wound.

Got a lot done in Basic. Climbed 2 challenge trees already and passed my first basic climbing test. Not a fan of being timed, just because I like to dick around in the tree, and I lost time doing so. I know I could have climbed that tree faster if I was a bit more relaxed. But now that I know what to expect, and I know where I can improve on my testing. The first challenge tree was one of those ridiculous walnuts I was talking about earlier, I nearly popped one of my berries “shinnying” out to a limb, and boy did I sure hump some serious air to get up to my first crotch. I should be able to climb 3 more challenge tree’s by week’s end.

Operations was also rad, had the first trip up to Balsam Lake. Aside from the intro and instruction, there wasn’t much time for cutting. Me and my partner are paired up with two more cutting teams, and were assigned a block of forest to clear cut. Because of time, I only felled one tree. Some of the dudes in my group got a fire going (which were allowed) to keep us warm, so this week I’m bringing some weenies and beans for a hot meal.

Started going to gym again to bulk up huge because I’m pretty out of shape for a climber. If you want tickets to the gun show just holler.

Cheers,

Ross

I Got Tickets