The unit I rented was a pull-behind, so I used my trusty pickup to bring it out to our property. It had a small gas engine that powered the electric unit that operated the various hydraulic cylinders which controlled the four leveling arms and the several ranges of motion that the arm has. The latter includes controls for moving the bucket up and down, left and right, extending the arm, and leveling the bucket in which the operator stands. The bucket was generally self-leveling, but you could do some fine tuning if required. The bucket was about three feet wide by five feet long. The unit could raise the basket to a maximum height of about 50 feet.
Here I am after putting the leveling arms (stabilizers) down and getting ready to work on the oak tree just west of our house.
At this point, Josey, along with my spouse, seemed to think I was nuts.
After a bit of orientation with respect to the four or five levers that provided control of the bucket's movement...
I was up and away into the tree.
I felt very comfortable in this thing. In fact, I was having lots of fun! It wasn't uncomfortable at all to go up quite high or to move the basket around. Once you get the hang of it, it is quite easy to maneuver into position and with good precision. The only problem I had was that the rental company hadn't filled the gas tank on the little engine that operates the unit. So at one point, when it ran out of gas, I was stranded, approximately at the point of the picture below. Fortunately, Kathie was nearby, and I asked her to put some gas in the tank. Naturally, we didn't have any available. I hadn't recently refilled the two cans of gas I keep for my garden tractor. She said she would go to town and get some, but she started mumbling something about new jewelry or new clothes. However, she decided to be a pal and did get the gas and did get the engine going again. Meanwhile, I continued to trim branches from the tree.
While I was trimming, Kathie began to carry some of the branches to our fireplace. She got a good fire started, and by the end of the day, all but one pickup load of the heaviest pieces had been burned.
After working on that oak, I moved to the white pine. Ice storms in each of the last two winters had broken lots of its branches, leaving many to dangle on others and to turn brown and unsightly. I was able to remove all of that dead wood and to reshape the tree.
When we were all finished, both of these trees looked much nicer, and we are now getting better sunlight under that oak. So, maybe we can get the grass to recover on the west side of the house.
I wouldn't hesitate to do this again, if necessary. Both of us were pretty tired by the end of the day and were a bit stiff the next morning, but I suppose we burned up a few calories in the process. So that's good.
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