Friday, May 22, 2009

My Son Wants to Be an Arborist

Our neighbor had his old, dead cottonwood tree cut down today. It was really fun to watch. They had a big crane-like claw attached to a huge dump truck and another truck with a crane arm ending in a bucket. They used the claw to grab the branches while the man in the bucket chain-sawed his way through the dead wood. It only took them about 2 hours to cut down a seventy foot tall cottonwood and haul off the waste.

We all sat in out backyard to watch as they worked. The kids were mesmerized, especially Blake. At one point, he was sitting in my lap watching, and I asked him if he wanted to be an arborist and do what those guys were doing. He paused, thought, and said matter-of-factly, "Yep."

My husband came home while they were in operation, and we decided to ask if they would haul away all of the branches and stump pieces we had piled up from our two cottonwoods that had been cut down last winter. They were happy to oblige, with pay of course, and they cleared off all of the wood in our side yard in a matter of 20 minutes. (It would have taken us hours.) Again, Blake stared and watched from our front window as the claw lifted and dropped the stumps and branches into the back of the dump truck. He wanted to go outside to watch, but we wouldn't let him.

Arborist, a boy's dream job! They get to work with trucks, cranes, claws, trees, and chain saws and get paid for it.

1 comment:

pacman said...

very interesting yet pretty weird.. :) Keep up the great work and please stop by my site bucket trucks sometime. Keep it up..