Prior to enrolling in Clearnote Pastors College, Pastor David Abu-Sara of Clearnote Church, Indianapolis, worked in Chicago as a treeman ("certified aborist"). I watched this video about a year ago, then again this past week. This time Dave was in the loop of those the link was forwarded to and he sent out an e-mail giving a little explanation of the work here recorded.
I've watched Dave take down trees that were leaning forty-five degrees in the opposite direction from where he set them down, and it's stupendous. Have a look at the video, then read Dave's commentary.
Urban Hardwoods / Seattle's Largest Hardwood Tree from Ron Hansen on Vimeo.
Dave writes...
Thanks for passing this along. It brings back some fun (and terrifying) memories.
In this kind of work, the crane operator makes or breaks the job. He’s the O-line that facilitates everything. This operator is really good. The only improvement would have been to use two chokers (on opposite sides) on the big logs to keep them from rolling as the crane took the load. The cutter puts his hand up at one point to try to keep the log away from himself (a completely futile and yet unavoidable thing to do). This is because they only used one choker and the crane operator had to let some slack out of his cable to get the log to move off of the top of the trunk.
I’ve been in that situation and, in the tree industry, it’s about as scary as it gets. I once had a bad crane operator and had the log jump up about 18” and come crashing back down on the top of the trunk because he thought putting tension on the log would help. He was wrong. The best shot in this video is at 6:20. The log doesn’t move at all when the climber cuts all the way through. That’s how it should always be done.
Tim serves Clearnote Church, Bloomington, Indiana. He and Mary Lee have five children and big lots of grandchildren.
Want to get in touch? Send Tim an email!
