Could This Be The Problem

My dive instructor buddy's compressor wouldn't work, so I took a look Saturday afternoon. I think I found the problem. This guy's job is to make me safe under water. But the most important thing I've gotten from diving with him is not to panic....

Emma Cranked

Emma was having a bad day last Friday. I found her tantrum so unbelievably funny, that I had to take her picture at a stop light. She didn't like my idea and tried to block the shot.

Tree Videos...

Here comes the first tree. J had already climbed it to attach the pull rope and take some weight out of the top. The wind was blowing fairly hard against it and it sat down on the back cut. Finally got some wedges in and then all the sudden the wind let up and down it came. Kaboom.


Dropping the second pine. I love my new saw. Of course now J is thinking about getting the next size up, a MS660. Of course I think he should just go for broke and get the MS880....


The video of me taking the top out is cooler, but will take forever to upload. Here's a shorter clip of part of one spar coming down. The tree split part way up, and we pieced down the half on the house side before falling the rest. Good times.

Ok, I'll stop bothering everyone with obsessive hobby photos for awhile....

More Treework

Last Friday and Saturday I was in Ashland, VA with Sawyer J at his parents' house to destroy some trees. I was told it was one limb over the barn and 6 small pine trees. When we showed up the pines were upgraded to medium, but still didn't seem that big of a deal. HAH! Turns out trees seem smaller when still standing.

This tree was safe, but I wonder now if it got the heebie-jeebies with all this tree equipment piled at its base?


Jason is up about 40ft in the first pine. The "small" pines turned out to be quite big, with 5 of the 6 measuring over 80ft. The base of the biggest measured 28" (not counting bark). Three of them had to be climbed. Jason's mom took tons of pictures and Jason even left a camcorder rolling for some of the action. When I get copies I'll try to post better pictures.


I got the honor of removing the offending oak branch that hung over the barn. You can see the saw hanging below me. At this point half of the branch has been taken down on rope in sections. The branch was about 45ft long, 10" diameter at the trunk. Thunderstorms were rolling through, and although we never got any on top of us, the wind was gusting like crazy. Like being in a carnival ride.....


A final look at the carnage of the pines Saturday morning. That's a lot of wood.

Eyeball

Closet Closure

Just a little closure on the closet saga. It was finished last week, and Erin immediately filled it up and decided I had to find my own closet.

Cooking Styles?

So, it turns out my wife and I have different cooking styles. Here is what Erin decided to do for Teacher Appreciation Day (or Week, whatever):


Then here is what Dave decided to do for self appreciation evening:


I'm wondering, what would y'all choose?

I miss my truck...

First goal

Marlee scored her first goal today as a left midfielder. But she spent
much of the day shutting the other team down as a defender. She can't
wait to tell Nate.

Emma's Dinner

Emma caught this little guy at the neighbor's house an hour ago. But
it was hooked in the gut so we couldn't release it. I have my doubts
as to how it will taste.

Cailin's new look

Kid's cell phone?

For some strange reason, my oldest daughter thinks she needs a cell
phone. Marlee is explaining the difference between needs and wants.

I'm a bit upset with Cailin's friends' parents, who seem to have made
her the only girl in fourth grade without one.

This is her best puppy dog face. A bit pathetic, don't you think? I'm
thinking something along the lines of, "Over my dead body!" I guess
that I've built up an immunity.

Family Time

Yesterday was Easter, and the bunny brought Marlee a kid's climbing harness. It was a nice sunny day, and so we tried it out on an oak tree next to the barn. The tree ended up getting a lot of love by the end of the day, and Marlee and I had to share our harnesses. And after 4 trips up and down I was ready for Easter dinner.

Marlee showing off the sit/stand technique for advancing up the rope.

Marlee hanging halfway.

This is the triple crown foot loop that I had the girls using. The prusik knot is where it attaches to the orange climbing line. They can stand in the loops and advance their main friction hitch up the line. Then sit in the saddle supported by the main knot and lift their feet into a sitting position and slide the foot loop prusik up the line. Repeat often.

Marlee rings the bell. Well, not really, there is no actual bell so touching the rings at the top (behind my green climbing line) has to do. I was told by Marlee, Cailin, and Erin yesterday that I need to put a real bell up there for them to ring when they get to the top.

Next it was Cailin's turn. The first thing she tried was hanging upside down.

Mom came out and took a picture of us. You can see the barn roof behind us, and the "bell" at the very top of the picture.

Cailin found a branch to chill on for a little while.

And then she made it to the top. I don't know why she's flashing the peace sign, I guess she's practicing for a future as an anti-war activist? Or is that something uncool kids just do?

At one point I found a great branch to lay out on and rest while waiting for the kids.

Erin goes up the tree too. Marlee is on the right, making sure Mom is doing everything safely. The kid is already a climbing know-it-all.

Everyone had fun, and the kids are upset they didn't get to do it more and that I won't let them do it by themselves. Ahh, to be a kid with no fear.

After a long day

Tax season is almost over and daddy couldn't be happier.

Tree Climbing Daddy Style

We'll start at the end of the day for perspective, and then rewind:

Marlee was bragging to Cailin at the dinner table that she got to go tree climbing. Cailin's response was, "So, I climbed a tree today too." And then came the "No, I got to climb a tree daddy style!" Unfortunately, I never got a picture of Marlee doing this, but she got a couple pictures of me earlier in the day.

I hear the Easter Bunny might be bringing her a real kid's saddle so she can climb without going numb in the lower extremities from the ad hoc rope saddle daddy made. Then I may have time to get the camera. Turns out recreational tree climbing is a growing sport, and a great family activity. In fact there is even a great company that is right down Riverbanks Road from where Erin used to live: www.newtribe.com. Check 'em out if you have a few minutes. I've got lots of other sites if anyone is interested.


Here I'm maybe 50 ft up rigging the bull ropes to lower a branch that hangs over the house. The offending branch is the large one below me coming across the right side of the picture.


Here you get a little perspective, although the ground still isn't in the shot. You can make out the spot where the troublesome branch was removed.


This is my climbing buddy, Jason. Also known as Sawyer J. This is up a neighboring tree where we were pruning a lot of the nasty lower branches purely for aesthetics.


After doing some delicate tree work at my house on rope, we went up to my neighbor's house to have a little fun just plain dropping some of his dead trees. I was feeling pretty cocky after dropping three dead pines exactly where I wanted. Jason really likes my big MS460 Magnum, I think it fits his personality.




Finally, we have a little video of Sawyer J dropping this dead oak tree at the neighbor's house. If you would like to comment on his OSHA-approved technique, I'm sure he'd be glad to hear it, just send him an e-mail.

Mashed potatoes

Meet my new favorite way to make mashed potatoes. Always been a hand masher, but my shoulder is bothering me so I tried something new. Ten seconds later I had the fluffiest potatoes ever. Never going back now.

Late Night Breadathon

Guess I'm not a clean cook...

Running

Today March went out like a lamb. (The lion was a snow storm on the
first.) The way work ended up, I had a little bit of time. So off I
went around Burke Lake. Only ran about half of the 5 miles, had to
walk the other half. Guess it's going to take more than once every
month and a half to get back in shape.

Talon

Testing...

Ok, I did it, managed to post from my new phone. Here's Marlee all ready for the new soccer season and posing with Talon, the DC United mascot on Saturday.

iPhone

I did it, I broke down and got the iPhone.

And it was everything I thought it would be.

And then my sister tried to send me picture messages and I realized that currently the phone doesn't support MMS. Instead I got an e-mail from ATT telling me to log in to some site to view the picture using a random username and password.

And then I realized that there doesn't seem to be a way to copy and paste these wacky usernames and passwords from my text message to the browser fields.

Hmmmm.....

It's still awesome. Besides, I guess they plan to fix these things on the next major software upgrade this summer? Maybe I should start paying attention to this kind of stuff.

In other news, I realize it's been over a month since I've posted. Wow, what a slacker. I have tons of pictures and stuff to put up. We'll see if I get to it or if I should just reset to t=0. I wonder how I post directly from my new phone???? Let's give it a shot.