Tree Hugger gets last laugh .

[Eagleview]

My clients have nick named my excavator with vertical tree extraction grab "Tree Hugger" .

It must have got mad today when the tree limb broke off and cracked one of it's fibreglass panels . I could not control it , it cleared a kilometre of creek banks heavily infested with Camphor Laurel before i could stop it . Because the stumps had to be left to prevent soil erosion , we hit them with the chainsaw first so as to leave a neater stump for poisoning . Some i snapped off and tidied them up later with the saw .

 

[irwin]

My clients have nick named my excavator with vertical tree extraction grab "Tree Hugger" .

It must have got mad today when the tree limb broke off and cracked one of it's fibreglass panels . I could not control it , it cleared a kilometre of creek banks heavily infested with Camphor Laurel before i could stop it . Because the stumps had to be left to prevent soil erosion , we hit them with the chainsaw first so as to leave a neater stump for poisoning . Some i snapped off and tidied them up later with the saw .

Looking good Iron Horse

Oooh' I'm sooo jealous...

The wife and I are hoping we can get a 25-35k lb excavator and a mid-sized skid steer in the next year or two.

I just showed her your pictures... "why don't we have one of those yet" was her response. Sometimes it's hard to be patient.

 

[WarrenF]

AHHHHH.....at least I can live vicariously through your ownership of "toys" that wish I had. Just went to a small farm show here, locally. My wife actually laughed at me standing in front of some of the equipment wishing I could operate it.

 

[Bird]

It's a fine looking piece of equipment, but that big tree looked too pretty to destroy, too.

 

[EddieWalker]

Great pics.

Do you just pick them up and drive to where you want them?

How big is your excavator?

Eddie

 

[Eagleview]

Irwin , you will wonder how you ever managed before after you get one .

WarrenF , none of us new how to operate gear at first , we all had to learn .

Eddie , i try to position the excavator so that i can pick up the trees and slew around to the pile . The pile in the photo was on the bend of the creek , and that whole clear area was done like this . The big tree i was walking to the pile with was the last one for that pile as the distance was getting to far . I then started another pile , there were about 10 piles for the 1000 metres/yards of creek . The machine weighs 23 tonne .

Bird , These are Camphor Laurel trees . They are pretty but highly invasive and very toxic . They kill surrounding native plants , kill birds , fish and animals . These trees came from two larger trees in an adjoining property and choked the creek . They are native to China and have caused havock here .

I am going to buy a mulcher for the excavator but i have found this method to be best for these trees . A mulcher would allow the toxic leaves and bark to enter the water way causing more problems . The photo below shows the machine carefully lifting a tree out of the creek so as not to do any damage to surrounding trees or cause soil erosion . Tree was to big to snap off so i got the owner to run a saw cut in from both sides which helps the machine and leaves a neat stump for poisoning .

 

[charlz]

Do you end up burning the piles or just letting them rot? Is the wood good for anything?

 

[Eagleview]

Most piles are burnt , some are left to rot and yes it makes beautifull indoor furniture .

 

[Shmudda]

I have seen one of those units work on a road widening project here in Western Pennsylvania, and they are truely amazing with what they can do.

The power of hydraulics is surely proven in the design of those tree wackers!

Craig

 

[Eagleview]

I finally got a chance to remove some of the Camphor Laurel trees from my property . I had the machine brought home for some TLC and maintanance before it goes away working again .

 

[EddieWalker]

Great picture. That's the type of pic you need to put in a frame and hang on your office wall. Maybe use it on a business card!! Just one of those that reminds me that a picture is worth a thousand words. LOL

Eddie

 

[Eagleview]

It's funny you should say that , i was just doodleing in Phototshop , trying to figure out how i could easily remove the backround so i could use it in my phone book add . I think i'll stick to driving it instead . Is there a program i can download to enable me to click on the machine to keep it and lose the rest ? I don't want to rub it out manually as it gets a little furry . I can't decide , which of the 2 photos would be best . Below is my current add but it's to hard to make the machine out . I would like to lift the image and apply it to a lighter background . I'll also add the scull and crossbones sign .

Yesterday i was in regrowth from 3"-8" in diametre , i was averaging one tree every 15-20 seconds . I worked it out i was pulling 180 trees per hour for 8 hours . I was just laying them down in rows for the farmer to scoop up with his forks . The place looked like a seen from Mt St Helens .

 

[EddieWalker]

Don't know of any programs myself, but hofeully somebody else does.

I noticed on your add that you mention Lantana twice. Is it a problem there? I've always thought of Lantana as one of my favorites plants. It brings in the butterflies, has good blooms most of the year that are bright and colorful. I've seen where it can get fairly overgrown on a residential home, but would never have thought of it as something you'd hire a guy with a 23 metric tonne excavator to remove!!!

Eddie

 

[actionaj]

Now thats the way to take down trees especially when you never have to leave the seat.

 

[Eagleview]

Eddie , Lantana was mentioned twice because of the two options for removing it . Either mulch it or rake it out .

It's native to South America and it is a huge problem over here , it has escaped from the garden and taken over here . River banks , forests and grazing land are being enveloped (ive been looking for a sentence to use that word in ) . Cattle die a slow and painfull death after eating it . My tractor with the 8' flail mower and hydraulic stick rake grapple are great at removing it in open areas , but the excavator is on it's own for creek banks , gullies and around trees and rocks as it can reach 30' .

This is a before , and a 10 minutes later shot of some young Lantana , i have had to remove it three times this height .

Yes actionaj , it's pretty easy . I get out of the cab at the end of the day like i got in .

 

[kthompson]

Eddie, you are talking about Lantana that is a flower with I think yellow or maybe other colors blooms aren't you?

Iron Horse, why do you want to remove the background of the picture? I suspect the people who do phone book ads will be able to edit it any way you want. They normally have the best in software.

 

[Eagleview]

I was just wanting to have a play around with several photos on different backgrounds before the ad deadline . They will not want to be doing this , they will give me thier artwork and that will be that as they are very busy .

Lantana in this photo , taking over a pasture . It gets a lot worse than this , in a bad infestation there are no gaps between the plants . 100% of the pasture is gone , any cattle that are brought into a paddock like this will die .

 

[rox]

I never heard of this tree before so I checked out Camphor Laurel Menace and you are right it is pretty nasty. Looks like you have a job for pretty much the rest of your life then whith your machine.
As far as your pic goes, were you not happy with just cropping it? The background once cropped I don't think is an issue. When is your deadlin for your ad?

 

[Eagleview]

This is my current ad for the slashing side of my business . I got the tractor image from the New Holland website . It was allready on a white background and the Local Directories changed it the Jacaranda colour (Grafton is the Jacaranda city). The tractor stands out well i think , i would like to do the same with the tree puller as all the other ads around me are just black on Yellow . I have plenty of time but would like to have a play .

 

[charlz]

I'm no graphic artist but I have clipped images out before for my FIL's business. Best is if you can get it on a high contrast background, like maybe on a hill with just blue sky behind it. Use the magnetic lasso tool to surround and delete various areas of the picture. You have to be zoomed in to make a neat job of it and it takes a while.

Start with the highest resolution images possible. Resize down and save to a new file for smaller sizes. Keep the hi-rez original. It's best if you don't work in JPG files as they are lossy-compression which degrades each time you save it. PNG is better but TIFF is best for your originals.