ShopTalk Sunday: Aborist Fail, Odd Power Problem, Shop PTP Planner

TL;DR:  The Ure’s tree-fixing falls flat – going wrong louder than a .22! Local power crews find our “sketchy” wires.  And Son G2 yells me out of a roofing project… Again it’s Sunday and wisdom through mischief is what we do.

OK:  Not an Arborist!

Living on just shy of 30 acres of tree farm sounds like an idyllic set-up, doesn’t it?  From our late 60s on it was perfect.  Now, however, there are a few things where we have applied the brakes.  Things like climbing trees and doing roof work.  Still, we figured, just because ground is safer, it shouldn’t mean we can’t do tree work, right?

Here was our problem tree.  Big-ass Southern Pine (100 ft class).  Where this bad limb had fell from higher up and landed in bronc-riding position over another limb.

It wasn’t particularly dangerous as potential dead-fall goes.  But I snapped at the opportunity to buy two things that had never come up on the Imperial Tool Slut’s shopping list, before.

One was an “Arborist Line Throw Kit.”  a nice ringed beanie bag with a metal ring on the end.  And some super-slick throwing line.  At Amazon this was $25 bucks.

After a bit of online study, I figured I’d pop the additional $22 bucks and pick up a “throwing box.”  This one.  Not that you can’t just toss the line on the ground, but with a throwing box, you’re more likely to keep the work site orderly and that can reduce (for old men of a certain age and eyesight combo) the odds of falling down.

First thing you do (in the comfort of the shop) is strip off the throwing line into the throwing bucket.

Check your work and it will look something like this: (Except where due to inattention it didn’t get in the box.  Say, I didn’t mention someone is  “somewhat smart but off-the-charts ADHD, did I?)

Then you go out to the work location and do some warm-up throws.  Which entertained the hell out of Elaine’s wild/feral cats.

Now you begin to get your recent baseball-Series mindset screwed on.  I sold a few bleacher  seat tickets to the feral Siamese – big thing in their homeland…  (I paused to spit a few times, for effect…though it didn’t seem to help.)

What I neglected to order was a rosin bag, but I didn’t think I’d be on the “mound” long enough to need it.  I was wrong.

After about two seasons worth of wild pitches in major league baseball (all teams combined), I was finally in position to “walk the tree”.

Just so the coaching staff can say “We Told You So…” here is the plan.  The fallen limb sticks up.  So if I get the line up behind it, as shown above, then I can pull up (back-haul from the other side) some 800 lb test paracord.  Then two lengths of paracord go on the tractor, which backs away from the tree – pulling the errant bronc limb with it.

So simple in theory.  Eventually (seven innings’ worth), the topside toss was perfect

So “routine” we didn’t even take snaps of the back-haul or tractor hookup.

Everything was going by the book.  Until everything stopped moving.  So I goosed the Kubota a bit….

Suddenly, a shot – loud as a .22 (short) went off.  The paracord parted. Just up from the tractor.

The story does have a happy ending.  Oh, no – that bronc riding limb is still up there.

But the saving grace of all this?  It was after the market closed.  So if we rushed a bit putting things back, we could make it to wine time in the 180-Room at the usual 4 PM tipple time.

Which we did.

Strangely, the conversation got around to “Now what?” and Elaine reminded me “Didn’t you do some research once to prove 5-blasts of double-ought buck would take down a 6-inch pine?”  

(Eyelashes fluttered, I went totally ADHD for a sec.)  Yes, Dear, I do seem to recall that – 2004 or 2005 if memory serves.

“Well, couldn’t you just do THAT instead?”

I love it how my woman thinks. But, with my luck, the game warden – already busy with deer poachers – will be along and ticket me for trying to take a pine out of season….

PTP Poster

Go ahead, download this and put it on the wall of your shop someplace.  Near the PPE supplies would be good.  You know – the masks, eye protection, gloves, eye wash station, Band-Aids, oxygen, AED, tourniquet kit – all  that shit we all have perfectly organized right?

PTP_Mitigation_Shop_Talk_Sunday_v2

“What’s this all about, Ure?”

Funny you would ask.  Son G2 gave me a good “yellin at” because I was going to sneak up on the roof and push up an antenna.  Nothing wrong with that.  Well,except my mentioning it…

Old “Blood and Guts Ure (G2) who’s the site medical whiz on several server farm builds proceeded to read me his case notes on umpteen “old men falling offs ladders” stories.  “I even had one guy fall off the ass-end of a pickup truck a mere 3-feet 8 and a half inches.  Shattered his ankle and here a year later I saw him and he’s still not back to walking normally.  You’re not THAT stupid are you Dad?”

I was about to explain about nuts falling near their trees (and give him my skydiving advice).  But he insists that construction site work is more dangerous than his time in pro fire (including wild land).  Sometimes, you just listen to the kids.

Antennas and roof patch are off the project list (at least those parts are).

But you know?  I can now sling an arborist line up a good 40-feet – plenty tall for an 80-meter antenna.  And as soon as I get off the “injured reserve list” from my November 1 face plant onto concrete, maybe I will work up a new plan with both feet poured in Qwikcrete with footings into terra bite me.

These days, the trick isn’t to stop doing dumb things. It’s to do them smarter — preferably with both feet on the ground and a cold drink waiting when you’re done. G2 seems to think on occasion that may involve rescheduling or cutting a check.  OK, sure, he’s working with an all union crew, but didn’t he learn anything in the firehouse about work on the off-shift?

Isn’t retirement KIND OF like that?

(Don’t bother answering – my ears are…what???)

Take Out for Young Pups

I know – OK, old man does crazy shit like this and never gets hurt.  Why is that?

Read a book on Rigging Safety once upon a time.  In fact, because I have a BIG rigging project coming up (taking down 55 feet of antenna tower with 20 feet of beam antenna on it) I re-read all the pertinent rules.  See this book on Amazon – on sale under $5 bucks.  (As G2 yelled “There’s no’ R’ in DEAD, dad!“)

I have been hoisting and rigging antennas longer than you have been alive (if you’re under 65).  I know having been trained by a serious firefighter family that you rig planning for a line failure.  When the paracord snapped?  I was never in danger because the “whip line path” was never to the operator…you following?  Went out either side.

This is the way you live to a ripe old age.

Now, sometimes you just get lucky, Like having onboarded 1 ETOH price to the 2-weeks back face-face onto concrete from one or two steps up.  The ETOH was just enough to keep me from reaching out to block the fall and locking my arm would would have broken.  Still, you won’t ALWAYS be lucky so you rig for failure and remember one more ETOH and you would have broken something for sure.

Life is a blessing each and every day, until you run out of blessings.

Two Power Problem Week

This was the “week of odd power shit” going around.  I think some of it must be related to the minor X-class flare, but who knows.

First, it was my buddy up the hill.  Needed to borrow a meter because he was reroofing one of their family’s homes (yeah, with enough property you can have homes for relatives unlike the big city…)  And while he had the roofing off, he’d gone looking for why a ceiling fan wasn’t working.  It’s a mobile home.

So I ran him up my Fluke 115 – which saved him a trip into town to get his from the shop there – and turned out it was a mouse had gotten into the ceiling and chewed the insulation off about 18 inches of Romex type wiring. It’s a miracle there was no fire.

Anyway, I took the occasion to gift him my Fluke 115 which sounds really generous until you read my DNA report about TSG (tool slut gene) and discover Amazon had Fluke 117’s on sale this week.  Everybody wins including me. Love that kind of deal structure, right?

“Ure – what’s the service entrance pole picture about, then?”

Ah.  Second story man – that’s me.

So Elaine comes over to the office on Friday.  “Power’s out at the house…”

Power never goes off at UrbanSurvival Office HQ because of the stupidly over-built power system.  Now comes the weird part.  Power truck was here within the house – didn’t find anything. And, as you’d guess the power came up 10-minutes before they got here.

An hour later?  No power again.  This time I got curious, though.

Over at the house, I noticed that half the lights were on and when I turned on an element on the stove, the other half came up, too.  But only to part way.

A quick confirmation check with the “silicons” who explained to this old carbon “..that meant we’d lost one leg of the 240-volt feed coming into the house. Classic open-neutral or dropped leg symptom.”

So what looked like “half the house dead” wasn’t gremlins — it was the other 120-volt leg back-feeding through whatever appliances were still tied across the line. That’s why turning on the stove element or dryer made the dark circuits glow dimly: those heating elements were acting like a big resistive bridge, letting just enough current sneak through to light bulbs at about half brightness.

Grabbed the meter (the shiny new  Fluke 117, naturally) and went pole-to-panel. Sure enough, one side was at 121 V, the other sagged around 50 V to ground. Bad splice or cracked crimp at the weather head most likely — and the lineman confirmed it later when he laddered up and found one aluminum conductor corroded clean through.  He was pro enough to re-connect all three.  Besides, I told him “You’re young enough so when this happens again on the other leg, you could be saving yourself a future call-out…”

Moral of the story? When the universe starts sending you “half-voltage” days, check your connections — physical and metaphysical. Sometimes it’s just a fried lug. Other times, it’s a reminder to tighten down the ones between your ears before the next solar flare hits.

Now off to stand on a footstool in front of one of the security cameras.  See how long it takes G2 to get pissed about the old man effin’ with him.

Write when it all falls down,

George@Ure.net

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