Some of you may be lucky enough to know of this lovely place along the Rio Grande called “the rock house”. My friends live there and are just the most warm and wonderful people you could ever meet. Like many New Mexicans, these acute and resourceful folks are used to solving problems and doing all kinds of jobs, even if they haven’t done it before. They really are good too–professional grade in all ways. So I was surprised to hear from them about a little old tree.
O
kay it wasn’t a small tree. It was a large cottonwood that had been uprooting towards the house. Maybe it wasn’t going to come down that week, but some unlucky day it would fall onto the house. We agreed that it was already a difficult tree to remove and it would only keep growing. My friends decided it would be best for us to remove it.
It would have been an awesome and rare opportunity arrive at the job site by white water raft, but alas with a tree that is uprooting we cannot risk sending a climber up, and the crane wouldn’t fit in the raft. Instead, we inched the crane into position because the driveway was very tight like a proper New Mexico driveway.
Once in position all we had to do was get really high in the air in a wiggly crane bucket that pivots freely under your feet in a distinctly unpleasant way when you lean one way and pivots back when you lean the other way. Some people, including Baby Gorillas, enjoy this sort of thrill, but one has to set one’s glee aside to focus on the very serious job at hand—methodically taking the tree down branch by branch.
Our arborists stay in constant communication with the crane operator for safety using bluetooth communication devices in our hardhats. Even when using chainsaws and heavy equipment sometimes 100 feet or more apart our technicians can just speak normally into their noise canceling microphones.
Next, we send a climber up to work in tandem with the crane. We call this process “riding crane ball”. It’s slow and methodical but never boring, just the way we like it. At the end, I’m just using the crane as a safety point for me while I spike the spar and cut chunk by chunk until the trunk is small enough to drop without hitting the house. That’s how we roll at the rock house!
When your gut says you need professionals to work on your trees, call Northern New Mexico’s most trusted tree service. Call Baby Gorilla Tree Service today for your free estimate!
