One of the things I love about this work and the interaction with trees is the immediacy of the situations you find yourself in: it focuses you on here and now. You put all the other stuff which is preoccupying you to one side and your focus narrows down to the climb and the job at hand – a sure fire way to unclutter your head…
We had the opportunity to work on a fantastic Lombardy Poplar yesterday.
It was the first colder day of this autumn, with clear skies and great views. The tree belongs to a rather lovely elderly lady, it had not been touched for years and was covered in ivy, standing a good 35m tall. Interestingly the dead wood which had been up there for years had change from the usually brittle deadwood to something which appeared almost ossified, hard and bleached. Climbing these trees can be quite challenging, you cannot help but love it: seeing the route up through the various stems, identifying pressure points for foot and hand holds – some aspects of it reminding me of boulder challenges.
And then there is the the fantastic perspective you get when looking down the tree’s stems…
Yep, I’ll have more of this, please.
