That ash tree job that turned into a nightmare last Tuesday

I was up on a 60 foot ash in a backyard off Maple Street in Oakwood, doing some deadwood removal. Everything was going fine until I hit a branch that was way more rotted than I thought. It snapped off clean and swung right into a neighbor's fence, took out like 8 feet of it. The homeowner was cool about it, but her neighbor came out screaming about how I was gonna pay for a whole new fence. I had to climb down, calm the guy down, and promise to patch it up before I could even finish the job. Ended up spending an extra 2 hours with a chainsaw and some spare lumber, just to make it look decent. Has anyone else dealt with a branch going rogue like that and hitting something you didn't even see coming?

2 comments

2 Comments

drew_park1mo ago

Buddy of mine had a ladder slip and put his boot through a garage window on the way down.

abby_wilson511mo ago

Hear you loud and clear on that, @drew_park's buddy with the garage window sounds like a rough day too. But honestly, a rogue branch is a whole different beast. You can plan for a bad ladder or a gust of wind, but a rotten branch that just lets go without warning? That's nature laughing at your plans. I had a similar thing happen where a branch snapped and clipped a gutter downspout clean off the side of a house. The homeowner was cool but I spent an hour rigging it back up with some brackets and caulk. At least with a fence you can patch it with lumber, but that gutter was a pain because it was old and brittle. It's like the tree always finds the one thing you didn't think to look at.