TreeActions

Dwayne (00:01.666)
Hello everybody and welcome to season two of tree actions the human forestry podcast and uh On this episode. It's just duane newsitter and tony trestle And we thought we would just take time to reflect on year one and uh Well, just that reflect on year one, you know, I i'll go ahead

Tony (00:25.718)
Yeah. It's, uh, well, it's, you know, it's always important to take time to look back at the things you've done, uh, the projects you've done, you've completed, what you could do better, what, um, what you would make different, you know, what do you want to move into the future? And, you know, it's the Aristotle quote, right? Like an, a life unexamined is not worth living. So the idea with this podcast was to take what it's meant, talk a little bit about, you know, why the podcast started.

and then what it's turned into, because it's turned into something very different than what I think I had maybe had envisioned or expected, or I don't know, I didn't come into this with these big grand plans, but at the same point, what it's turned into, and I'm very pleased with what it's turned into, is really beyond any of my expectations, I think.

Dwayne (01:14.19)
I would agree. I would agree. You know, if I think back, you know, the, it was the aftermath of a, of a Arbor Canada training event where I realized, you know, we've, we've been in business for 25 years plus now and that we had, you know, going back to the beginning instructors, the first instructors that were ever full time at the organization and we've routinely had, you know, get togethers, but

You know, it's been long enough now that there's instructors that are with us now that never even knew those instructors before. And, and, you know, it was a way to just connect the, to keep the legacy alive, I guess you could say, or to make sure, just to provide some venue to keep a connection between the past and the present, not, not just to focus on the history, but to focus on where we've come from and where we are now, kind of like what happened, what it was like and what, what it's like today and, uh,

And, um, you know, that's why the first episode was norm, who was our very first instructor. And, you know, it was in that podcast where, you know, and he reflected in, you know, that was the first time Don Blair was mentioned of many times as, as a key person in people's development of arbor culture or as arborists. And, um, and it very quickly turned into, uh, kind of almost a history.

Tony (02:18.454)
Mm-hmm.

Tony (02:27.795)
Mm-hmm.

Dwayne (02:41.054)
overview of, of arbor culture in a way with this human forestry problem of, you know, how trees have connected or helped us all individually as persons and as people, you know, living life while, you know, making our living, uh, doing trees or something to do with trees, but yet living the life everyone else lives, which is family, friends and joys and struggles.

milestones and whatever, right? And really expanding my thinking into what trees are, the example that trees are, I think, of what it's like and of what living life is like. And you know what's fascinating to me? I was recently talking with a niece of mine who does a lot of spiritual healing type work and she made a reference to trees. And I told her about the podcast. In fact, I'm considering that one.

I think she'd make a great guest.

Dwayne (03:44.758)
We got all talking about trees, the forest trees, but then also the urban forest trees. And there's almost even more, or as much kinship with trees in the urban forest as trees in the human forest, because the challenges that trees face are like some of us that have grown up with challenges, and the challenges urban trees face much different than, and if you grew up in a family where there was a lot of support, a lot of network.

siblings, aunts, uncles, you know, maybe your life was more forestry-like, more like the natural forest. But for some, you know, I was adopted and, you know, my beginnings was kind of like in a nursery, literally. And I was an individual and I wasn't part of a collective until months later where I joined a family and started that journey in a different way, you know, and how that, you know, and how that even affects how trees shape and grow.

You know, an open growing tree, growing somewhat as an individual or planted that way as specimen, has a totally different form and structure than the same tree would have in the forest. And just another way of looking at it and, you know, we've tried to draw that out. I've tried to draw it out in our sessions, you know, as far as how people relate to how trees have affected them professionally.

Tony (04:54.507)
Mm-hmm.

Dwayne (05:09.57)
how we've been directly connected to trees, but then how trees have intangibly affected our lives. And, you know, some people get more, talk more about that than others, but everyone seems to have some, what's the word I'm looking for, a way to, can relate to the concept in some way, shape or form. And I'm trying to think of one that stood out for me this past year, but I mean,

We did 27 interviews, I think we said, Tony.

Tony (05:41.278)
Yeah, I think we had a total of 27 episodes from last year. Some of those, no, those were the full hour long interviews. There were some others like we did the sprouts at the ISA show, just sort of the short things, almost kind of experimental stuff. So with 27, so I didn't, I didn't total up the hours, but it's a lot of hours of, um, you know, of, of discussions. I think what kind of, initially when we started doing a podcast, what really struck me was how many themes kept repeating, you know,

Dwayne (05:50.222)
Right.

Yeah.

Tony (06:12.195)
Like so many people's stories had a common thread to them, you know, like how they got into tree work almost on chance or whim. And it really ended up being like, it put them on a better path than the path they were going or the people. Like I remember talking with Wenda where she described when she's up on the top of that tree, you know, doing this climbing test that she was totally not really suited to do, but she didn't care how tough it was or how bad she was struggling.

She just knew when she was at the top of that tree that this is what she was gonna do. And to hear stories and themes like that repeated over and over really made me take a look at my own story, right? And see the themes in my story and in my life, being second generation arborist, never having been outside of this industry to look in. It was a unique perspective for me to see that because it allowed me to take a step back and for the first time in my life, be able to look from the outside in to arbor.

and forestry. And I think that when I started to recognize those themes is when I really, you know, and then the podcast and the way the discussions went really started to change on that. Yeah, there's a good bit of history, you know, there's a good bit of, you know, old equipment reminiscing, I guess you'd say, which is always kind of fun. It's interesting to see what we've been and where we've been and where we're going, but it's just those themes were so common and it was so-

Dwayne (07:27.426)
Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Tony (07:36.802)
I found that really, really interesting and intriguing to me to hear those stories and see those common threads.

Dwayne (07:44.842)
I agree. And also what I found interesting, which was a recurring type of sentiment, and maybe not always expressed on the show, but in the short talks after or before we would start recording, was how many people valued the concept of the historical aspect of it, or of the stories of where individuals had come from.

their journey to the trees sort of thing. I found that interesting and quite common how it started very young initially for people. You know, their first memory goes back to childhood long before they ever found themselves also by chance, like you say, in it as an occupation type of thing where they're making a living at it. I found that interesting as well.

that there was that common thread, but that people liked hearing about others' journey in that way, I found interesting too. And that it was valued, that. And what I found interesting about it is we're in such an information age, you know, where there's no, so easy to find resources. And yet here we are just sharing stories and yet it seems to be valued.

Tony (08:48.087)
Mm-hmm.

Tony (09:09.158)
Mm-hmm.

Dwayne (09:09.366)
the age old technique of just sitting around telling stories or talking, you know? But, you know, I think COVID definitely has bolstered the whole audio format, or, you know, you don't have to be sitting at the same table in order to have these discussions and get meaning from them, right? Which we know we're capitalizing on and benefiting from as well.

Tony (09:12.915)
Right.

Tony (09:28.666)
Yeah.

Tony (09:32.734)
Well, I think what COVID really did was it made us familiar with these tools that we use to record because you're sitting in your kitchen right now in Alberta and I'm sitting in my office in Pennsylvania. And it's these tools have existed for a while. COVID has made them a lot better, but it made us much more aware of them. And I think for me, it really, it showed me the power of them, that we can sit down and have these conversations with people or between ourselves.

and record it and then share it with other people. And there's value in that. And it's, yeah, I've had a couple people come up to me when I've been out and about doing training and stuff that have listened to the podcast and said how much they've just appreciated hearing the other perspective. And it kind of reminded me, I remember, and we've talked a lot about the tree climbing competitions and the ITCC. And that makes sense too, because that's been the major tribal gathering for us. It makes sense that should come up. But it reminded me of the first couple of times I went to a tree climbing competition here at the chapter.

Dwayne (10:19.undefined)
Mm-hmm.

Dwayne (10:23.266)
Mm-hmm.

Tony (10:30.078)
It was eye-opening to me to realize that I wasn't alone. I wasn't the only person climbing trees because I was really kind of working in a bubble. There was my older brother who owned the company. There was my friend and Ben's friend, Pete, who was my climbing mentor, and that was kind of it. And there were other tree companies around, but they weren't, not to put them down, but they weren't working at the same level. They weren't doing the, they were topping, they were just indiscriminate pruning and all those things.

Dwayne (10:51.278)
Mm-hmm.

Tony (10:58.186)
My brother was really building a company based on modern arbor cultural practices and we were really the only ones doing it in the area. And it was nice to go to a tree climbing comp and meet other people that were doing it too. And I think that what people have described to me when they hear the podcast, it's like, oh yeah, that's kind of cool. They see the common themes too. They thought that maybe they were the only person that chose arbor culture because it was just, they were going down a path that wasn't working out well for them or maybe they weren't going down any path. Maybe they just needed a path.

and trees kind of gave them that path and led to something. And you're right, it's amazing how many people, I wonder if, you know, we talked to a lot of people that have been in this business for so long. I wonder if that's just because of the people we know. You know, it's like, is there a recency bias? It's just all the people we know and talk to have been doing this work forever. You know, so I think that it's interesting to share those stories. And, you know, I mean, we've...

Dwayne (11:41.206)
Wow.

Dwayne (11:52.514)
Well, in your opinion, if I could... Go ahead.

Tony (11:54.282)
We've talked to so many people that I've known for 20 plus years and I know most of their story, but it's amazing that I've never really heard them tell the story. Like we just, it'll be coming up here. The interview we did with Jeff Dice. I mean, I knew about his dad and the accident and stuff, but I'd never heard Jeff tell the story before and hearing Jeff tell the story was awesome. You know, you know,

Dwayne (12:08.888)
Right?

Dwayne (12:14.538)
That was powerful. That was a big one. That's definitely one you want to get everyone. Jeff Dice's interview is a beautiful interview. I had something I was going to say but that one took me out now. Remembering Jeff's interview was pretty powerful.

Tony (12:35.826)
Mm-hmm.

Dwayne (12:40.606)
It's a what I was going to say is the people, you know, I have tried in gathering guests, you know, obviously we lean on recommendations and we do try to, you know, follow up on most all of those that when people say, hey, this person would be good, because we ask people, you know, who they might recommend. But I also like that we have what I like to think a bit of an eclectic group or a varying background. And

I think that's something we want to continue to do in the future. And we're working on developing some social media pages. Right now we're looking at doing an Instagram page for those of you that are listening. A way for people to make suggestions is to volunteer. I had a young lad that is a very young arborist, only four years now, and he's gotten into listening to some of the shows, some of the episodes. And I know him.

as well and I said, well, you make a great guest and he was flabbergasted. You know, why would you want me in the show? I'm just, I'm a young arborist, I don't know, I don't have any history. It's like, well, it's another perspective. You know, and I, just as far as listeners go, like we want, I'm part of my feeling for the show is to just give a broad of viewpoints as possible from different, you know, we've had quite a, you know, we've had consulting arborists to practicing working arborists to retired arborists.

Tony (14:10.142)
Mm-hmm.

Dwayne (14:10.81)
to people even loosely related to agriculture, you know? And that's a theme I'd like to continue working on in the future. So, you know, when you're thinking of people, if you wanna get on the show, you got something you'd like to share, you know, we're open, and we're very approachable. So I wanted to make that take time on this episode, Tony, to make that overture. You know, there is just finding us on conventional means.

But look forward to being able to have a social method of being able to tap into the episodes and to connect with us. And that's another, something new, I guess, that we're branching into, Tony. And maybe you want to talk a little bit for those listeners to talk about the Patreon page and our ideas there.

Tony (15:07.166)
Yeah, like I said, Dwayne, I mean, we've been careful mostly from my standpoint. I'm not a huge social media fan. It can be a very big energy and time vampire. I have to treat it very carefully. But I think the Instagram page will be an excellent way for people just to participate, to give us suggestions, feedback, comment. But the other thing we're looking to do more, and what we've found with this is through telling stories that we're really kind of starting to build a community.

And we've had a lot of people say, you know, you do such a great job with the, with the podcaster, you know, how can we support you and how can you do it? So I, I did some searching around and, and so we opened up a Patreon page. You can find it. Um, just do a web search for patreon.com P a T R E O N. I believe is how they spell it. And you'll find it under tree actions. And what it is, is it's an opportunity for, um, you can get for free. You can get like five minute blurbs of all the, of all the episodes that come out on there. But if you, uh,

support the show. I think we're at like $3 now. We'll probably up that in a little bit. You can support the show for like $3 a month and then you'll get access into the back where you'll get all the episodes a week early. We're going to develop some more stuff behind there, but mostly what you'll get is there's the ability back there to really build community and talk with us one-on-one. You're not going to catch me responding to people on social media. It's just not where I want to spend my time and energy.

If somebody's on the Patreon page, I'm more than happy to respond to them because it's a much more of a selective captive audiences, people that really want to be there. Um, and it's just, you know, I've learned that, you know, we put time and energy into producing these shows and it's a labor of love and the podcast, you know, we've talked about this before, Dwayne. I never wanted to be sponsored. I always wanted to be free. I don't want anybody other than you and I, um, you know, deciding on who does what and who gets on the show and who doesn't.

but there is an expenditure, it does cost money to post these things, to run the software and stuff, and it's not terrible expensive. But mostly I wanted to open it up because I want people to be able to put their own energy into the show, whether it just be through feedback or it be through dollars and cents, either way is fine. Because in the end, when you pay for something, it's just an energy exchange, right? That's all it is. The idea is not to turn the podcast into a multimillion dollar.

Tony (17:27.322)
you know, enterprise. I'm not trying to be the next Joe Rogan or Andrew Huberman and Huberman lab, just really looking away to build community and to, you know, maybe, you know, allow people a chance to support something that they like because I've used Patreon with a couple creators and content makers that I've enjoyed. And I don't mind sending them, you know, a couple dollars to help support their, what they got going on. So that's coming out. It's active and live now. There'll be a link in the show notes. There will be.

continually and then I got a little blurb that's going in front of every episode to talk about just that for the first couple weeks throughout the year. So just trying to grow and I mean ideally we can have a little bit of a budget and then we can drive around do some of this stuff live which would which is always fun, right? The little the dabbling that we did at the Ontario ISA show the little sprouts that we made that was a lot of fun to do it would be fun to do some more of that because while this software works really well It's still not quite the same as standing next to somebody and talk

Dwayne (18:26.458)
And we've also been asked or comments have come up about using more than audio. And we have one guest that was on the show. He's one of our more listened to guests. Don Blair has requested that or asked if it would be possible to do a video session where he, cause he has stuff that he wants to show and he likes to use his hands. And, and, and so that's something that we're working on as well. Now, Tony, is that something that we're

Tony (18:35.15)
Mm-hmm.

Dwayne (18:56.222)
is one of those special things you get as being a part of the Patreon? Is that what we're thinking with that type of stuff?

Tony (19:03.03)
Yeah, probably. I'm not real sure. I'm kind of winging it, playing it by ear now. You know, it might be, I have a feeling that if we do something like that with Dawn, it's going to be beyond our usual, you know, 70, 75 minutes time limit. So I'm not sure. Some of it might end up being on the Patreon page. Some of it will probably be on the regular podcast. I'm not quite sure how it's going to work yet, but I think, you know, the, the main podcast itself, I fully intend to keep audio because I think it's more accessible to people.

Dwayne (19:26.786)
Yeah.

Tony (19:33.162)
You can listen to it when you're driving down the road. I'm not opposed to doing audio. I just would, I still want to keep the main podcast, you know, the one we put out every other week to be audio, you know, forward. It's just, well, one, it's a little bit easier for me on a technical, less time consuming for me to edit. So, and then the other thing is I'd mostly, it's just, it's more accessible if, and we don't really, our conversations thus far and the way we plan them out don't really require video.

Dwayne (19:43.266)
Just trying to, yeah.

Dwayne (19:55.874)
Yeah, oh yeah.

Tony (20:02.006)
But if we do something special like with Don Blair, I mean, that would obviously, you know, to get into some of the history and stuff, that would be something different. It's just always looking for new ideas and ways to change it up and keep it different. The podcast itself, the bi-weekly, will remain audio for a very long time.

Dwayne (20:15.694)
Great.

Correct. And I'm glad you mentioned that because I wasn't suggesting that we were going to change tree actions. You know, tree actions, it'll be our core modality and always remain that way. But adding, you know, little special events here and there or special features once in a while, I think is what we're talking about. And you know, it's kind of seeing how they go too. You know, we've been, the whole thing has grown organically that way.

Tony (20:24.801)
Mm-hmm.

Dwayne (20:47.758)
and we've kind of responded to feedback and stimulus as it's occurred and made adjustments as we've gone along. One thing I'd like to tell everybody that a feedback that we've gotten, some feedback I've gotten, which I've appreciated is our introductory portion. And we were a bit better at it in the beginning. And I have to, Tony, I drop the ball on doing bios for every person.

But a better job of at least our intro, and it's something I wanna commit to for the next year is just to have a bit more background because I had one friend, a close friend who's not an artist at all, and he was really interested in this, but not being from the industry, the name didn't automatically conjure up a memory per se. And then I got to thinking too, not everyone in one of our lessons may know the history or how...

where Don Blair came from, for example. Like, to you and I, you say Don Blair, it's like saying Shigo. But I think we need to, we could do a better job in the very beginning of just telling what who's on the show and where they come from. And, cause we kind of just get straight into it, you know, as we, with our sessions. But, oh, my dog's barking. So, I think that was something that came from feedback. And, you know, I've appreciated it, cause it makes sense.

Tony (22:04.255)
All right, forget it.

Dwayne (22:16.474)
And it was two people, not just one. And so, you know, and we don't have to make it a big elaborate process, but if anyone's been wondered about that or who is this person and who are they talking to, you know, we're gonna try to improve on that as well. So that was something that's come out of feedback and why I think we can just continue to grow and develop. I was maybe a little bit Tony on why we've never made it.

available. A lot of people have gone to search for it and at this point it's still not really searchable. So just explain some of the reasons behind that.

Tony (22:55.518)
Yeah, the way the podcast runs is it's not, it's what's called an unlisted podcast. So it's not, it's like an unlisted phone number. Like it's not in the phone book. So when you go onto a podcast service and search for tree actions, it won't show up. And it did that mainly. I think initially it was started to kind of keep it smaller on purpose because we didn't quite know where it was going to go and know what it was going to turn into and what we were going to use it for. So.

And then it stayed that way because it occurred to me that it would have to, the only way it could spread that way would be like through word of mouth. One person telling another person or somebody talking to me and then I tell them and then they tell another person, which then occurred to me that that's kind of how trees grow and roots. And it was spreading like a root system would grow. And I thought there was kind of a poetic symmetry there called my artistic side was tweaked. So we've always kept it that way.

I'm not entirely sure if we listed it how much of a difference it would make I Mean, it's a fairly easy matter to list it on all the podcast servers I'm not I don't know if I ever did it would just be to be more convenient for the listeners finding it You can find it on the on with the RSS link and put it on your podcast Player whatever podcast player you have you just have to search for the URL. There's usually a function says search for podcasts with URL

and you enter that RSS link, or it's on the website. If you go to TreeActions, I think it's treeactions.fm.com because we run it through the web, or maybe Transistor, don't remember. We run it through a site called Transistor, comes with a webpage. So if you do TreeActions search, all one word, it will come up pretty readily. There aren't too many TreeActions out there, and then you can get it online as well too. And once again, you can get it through the Patreon page, if you remember Patreon, you can get.

for free just like the first five minutes of each episode. And then if you get behind the paywall there, you get the full episodes on there as well too. They're all currently audio now because I haven't produced any video content for it. I don't.

Dwayne (24:59.222)
Basically the only thing people can't do is look up on Spotify or whatever these different apps are and then find it in the listing. That's really all we're talking about, isn't it?

Tony (25:12.898)
Right. Yeah. And I mean, that's a pretty easy fix. We could we could totally change that. And I don't like I said, I don't think it would be that much of a difference in. Like I said, I think the main reason it was kept the way it is now is it just kind of tweaked my artistic poetic sense more than anything. I thought it was kind of cool, but I could certainly change it around if it makes it easier for people to find.

You may get the, I just don't see too many people searching through, you know, Apple podcasts looking for an arborist, but what do I know? Who am I to say? So that's the story behind that. There was no grand plan other than it just seemed very synchronicity. Nice.

Dwayne (25:56.982)
Well, you know, I'm sitting there thinking about our listeners and I thought maybe you and I could both regale each other and whoever's listening with the story of the first time.

Dwayne (26:18.894)
The gravity of tree care came to bear. Maybe the way I could put it. I remember, and this is long before I knew what I was doing, but I realized in this situation that there was a lot more going on. I wouldn't know, you know, I don't know if I was smart enough for it to have scared me, but...

It was the beginning of my journey into realizing there's more I should probably know. Um, and I'll go back to 1990. This would be 90, 92, 1992, I believe. Might've been 91. And, uh, we were, we had been, uh, we were rigging down. So we're rigging. Number one, this, uh,

large cottonwood and we were down to the big wood. There was only a 20 foot, 30 foot peg left or statue. And it was getting into big wood. We had the big saw up, which didn't happen that often in the city of Calgary where I was working at the time. It wasn't that often that we would have to have a saw of that size in order to make the cuts. And it was in a rather affluent area along the river valley. They had a really nice backyard. And the whole idea was not to divot or

Dent the lawn. That was the thing. We don't want to dent the lawn. And I remember the farm and being really upset with the company owner because we had, we had all winter just passed and it just turned spring and everything. It started to thaw. And then we had this removal that had been on the books for months. And, uh, he couldn't understand why in the hell we hadn't done the job when the ground was frozen, you know, cause now we had to be extra careful and we were rigging pieces.

because we couldn't just let them drop. And we had taken great care to protect the lawn at the base of the tree with tires covered with plywood. So we had tires arranged all around the base and then put plywood on top of the tires, old tires to create like a barrier cushion if a piece was to, you know, if pieces dropped, a big piece dropped, it wouldn't like punch a hole or leave a dent in the grass.

Dwayne (28:43.838)
You know, we felt we were pretty up to date. I remember we had just received not long before that, a brand new pulley. And it was a steel SMC pulley with beaner. But the beaner was definitely SMC. I'm not sure what the pulley was. I remember that it was a prusik minding pulley, which nobody knew what that was for, but that's what it was. It was steel and it was rated very high. I remember...

boss commenting on how strong it was and it was the beaners were rated at 48 KN and you know we extrapolated that to be some thousand seven thousand some crazy number you know you know we looked at the piece the boss would be like there's no way like look at this no matter how big of a chunk of what you're going to take this is way more than that and uh but the pulley was less but I don't know if it had a rating on it or not

Dwayne (29:42.798)
sling so we'd always take the big sling and we put that at the bottom of the tree. So we had two sizes slings and the big one always went at the bottom because that was the one where you're grabbing the load. You know, that's what you had to hold on to. So you wanted to make sure that was tough. And then the smaller sling would go at the top. And then we had a figure eight that we used. We were really advanced. You see, we had moved beyond wrapping around the trunk. We were using the steel figure eight.

and it had, it was a locking aid or what we would call a hearing aid, it had ears on it. And we would just load the system up, pull it tight, someone would hold on and you'd make your cut, we'd do a shallow notch and back cut it and then just push and it would just flump and shake, rattle and roll. Like get ready for the friggin thwomp. And you'd sit there until everything stopped.

more than maybe 30 seconds, but those 30 seconds would just be intense, mostly for the person on the stick. And then once it all settled, we'd lower it to the ground. And that process just would intensify as each piece, as you move your way down to the trunk. And we had gone far lower than we would normally go because we didn't want to damage the lawn. And I had to switch to a different hitch.

And I was up there trying to tie a timber. I think he was trying to have me tie a timber hitch. And you know how timber hitch, you talk Tony about the way of tying it with norm hole, showing you with the extra half, cause it doesn't, well, mine kept falling apart. I was up there and I was, and I wasn't, I wasn't relatively new climber. So I was being, I was getting intimidated by the guys in the ground and the form in particularly.

Tony (31:25.742)
Mm-hmm.

Dwayne (31:38.626)
Just get it tied on there. Finally, he reached the point of breaking. He said, get down, I'll do it myself. Which I gladly said, fine, I'm bailed. Donna came and he went on up and he tied it all up. And it was, I think we only were gonna do two more pieces. So this was a pretty big chunk. And I'll never forget it. I was just sort of standing observing because I had been in the tree and I was kind of resting and feeling shame. I was like in the penalty box.

Tony (32:06.584)
hehe

Dwayne (32:06.926)
And there's a guy on the rope holding it and he had holding it fast and we had a 3 eighths line that was just to barely fit into the pulley. Like it was, it was, it was too big. There's no way it fit properly into the gusset of the, of the Shiv. Um, I mean, I looked back on it, just every possible thing was, was incorrect. And, uh, and then stubbing it off, locking it off, taking the low shock and then lowering it down. So.

The ground guy's holding onto the rope. The foreman's up there, cuts it, releases it. And I'll never forget it. It just splat, hit the ground. It didn't, it's like he hadn't tied it on. But I'd watched him tie it on, but it hit and fell so quickly. It was if it wasn't tied on. And I couldn't understand, I'm sitting there looking, wondering what just happened. And it was no longer, no sooner did I think that than the ground he hold the rope.

screams and let's go to the road. But it already had happened. His reaction time wasn't fast enough and the rope had ripped through and burned right through his gloves and burned his skin. And the pieces laying on the ground and I look up the tree and hanging off the sling is this steel rescue carabiner that was rated for 48 kilo newts. And it is five times its normal length. Like it's a foot and a half long.

and the metal is maybe.

half the thickness of a pencil. Like it's extremely thin and it's just swinging there. And I noticed that the base is the pulley's there and it's just stretched and warped, but it didn't break. But the carabiner is just partially hanging in the thing and most of it's gone. We never did find any piece of it. And I remember asking,

Dwayne (34:09.058)
We took the piece and then the foreman comes down to the tree and notches it and just drops it and puts a big old fat dent in the lawn. Just says, screw it, we're done. I am sick of this. And we proceeded to haul out logs. And I think we had to go back to finish the next day and everything. But I remember going back to the shop saying, what the heck, boss? And with genuine curiosity and please teach me how this happened.

Tony (34:17.739)
Hehehe

Dwayne (34:38.762)
And it was just basically, ah, you guys took too big of pieces, ridiculous. You guys what the, and it was, it was just thrown in the garbage. It didn't even, you know, I wish I would have never given it back to him, the broken bean here, cause it was such a, it was astonishing, uh, how, and it was warm when it came, this was minutes later still, it was still hot. Um, I remember. So that was the first time. And it was, it was

It still took many years, it was until I met Pete Dunzeli, that I really started being educated about what forces can be generated in rigging. And I don't know if anyone ever's experienced anything being broken, but I think it's a story that I haven't told in a long time and I thought, you know, maybe some people might learn from it, might benefit from it. And you know, one of the learnings I got out of it now, and that's why I realized putting the big sling at the top.

It's completely wrong because it's always twice the load due to the rigging point. You know, so the big sling should always go at the top. You shouldn't snub it off. You should not ever, it's not a good way to, it isn't managing friction at all or, or shock load and it's just enduring shock till it's over, you know, and I don't know how many people still do it like that out there. I have a feeling Tony, a lot of people still do that and think that that's just part of rigging and, uh, I thought.

As basic of a lesson as it might seem to be, maybe it's something I'd talk about today. And I have one other story to back that one up that almost killed me, but we'll save that one for another time. But do you have a story where you realized, holy shit, something's going on here that's bigger and badder than I realized?

Tony (36:27.11)
No, not really to that extent. I was always fortunate, you know, being second generation, I didn't want to be an arborist, so I tried not to be an arborist. So as soon as I graduated from high school, I enlisted in the army and left home and tried to get as far away from New Holland, Pennsylvania as I could. And I did a pretty good job. Ended up in Europe for a couple of years and around. So while I was exposed to arboriculture, it wasn't really what I wanted to do. And then when I got back out of the army.

my brother had started the tree company, but it really just helped him out. One, it kinda needed some beer money, and two, he needed help. But they didn't let me really do anything except run a rake for the longest time. And then I would like kinda, I would kinda, you know, I would lower a little bit. And occasionally I would like steal someone's saddle when they weren't looking and climb a small tree and get yelled at. Because guilt and shame are training techniques with the family business. And so, and I put it around like that for the longest time, but then there'd be,

Dwayne (37:06.155)
Okay.

Dwayne (37:21.113)
Thank you.

Tony (37:26.25)
came apparent that I was fairly decent at work. I had some aptitude for doing it, whether it just because I'd been exposed to it forever. And I mean, I knew the basis of a climbing system. Like my dad taught me how to climb on a taut line and a butt strap saddle when I was 13. So I knew it, I knew the process of it. And getting out of the military, I was fairly strong. I was fairly fit so I could do it.

So I was fortunate in the fact that I kind of coasted into it. It, you know, it got to the point where I was 28 years old and, you know, I'm like, I have to make decisions in life. Like I got to find something that I can't just keep wandering around doing nothing. I got to find a path to go down. And I decided that it would be arbor culture. I look back on it now and know that a big part of my decision was to help my brother out.

And I think a big part of the decision for me was at that point in my life, on a personal level, I really needed a tribe. I was a couple years out of the military and I missed the tribe. Like, you know, if you fit in the service, you know exactly what I mean. But when you live with a group of guys, for me, it was specifically guys because we were a combat forward unit. We did everything together. We ate together. We went out at night together. You know, I lived in a barracks with.

you know, four to six roommates, hell, we took shits together. So when we were in the field, it's just what you did, right? Because you didn't go anywhere by yourself. So when I got out of the military, I think that's what really affected me was that loss of tribe, and I found that tribe in arbor culture. So having said that as a corollary, I kind of drifted into it and made the decision. And at that point, we were doing very much the same thing. We had, you know, we were high tech. We had a figure eight.

Dwayne (38:50.242)
Yeah.

Tony (39:11.434)
that we were lowering off of and we used two carabiners. They weren't locking carabiners by any stretch of the imagination. They were the big kind of teardrop with the eye shape at the bottom ones. You can still get it like Home Depot, but you had to use two of them and you oppose the gates, right, so that it wouldn't slip off. And yeah, we still have the figure eight. It's got like these two millimeter grooves worn into it. It hangs on the wall in the shop. And we were, that was.

Dwayne (39:22.242)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dwayne (39:28.059)
Wow. Wow, you're a god.

Dwayne (39:36.269)
Yeah.

Tony (39:40.574)
You know, but at that point, because it became obvious that I was gonna stay more involved with the business, my brother really started investing time and energy and sending me to training courses and getting me to know. So I went to did the Harbor Master courses and you know, met of course Scott and then through him would have met Norm and got a port of rap, you know. And so there wasn't, I mean, I've had moments in my career, I would have to say my story is almost a little opposite. Those moments like that were because I was getting good training and I went over my skillset or my head.

because I thought I knew more than I did. Right, or I would get so, but I remember the first time I remembered, I learned how to make a bore cut in the tree, right? Like, oh, this is awesome. You can set your hinge and you can bore cut it and you can cut from the back, it's great. And I'm doing that, but I forgot to remove my tie-in point from the piece I was cutting. And it's a sobering, sobering thing when you see the top going and you're like, oh, that cuts awesome. And then your climbing line goes slack and you're like, oh shit.

Dwayne (40:23.523)
Yeah.

Dwayne (40:28.054)
Yeah.

Tony (40:38.014)
Luckily it was a very small tree because they didn't allow me in very big trees. And the top really hit the ground before it loaded my system. But had I not put my lanyard on, and the only reason I put my lanyard on was quite honestly Rip told me to put my lanyard on when I did the training with him. So I put my lanyard on because if Rip tells me to do it, I'll do it, seems fair enough to me. That's what kept me from getting pulled out of the tree. I don't think it would have been a fatal accident and I was pretty.

still in my 20s, so I would have bounced pretty hard on that one. I think I would have made it through, but it was definitely one of those where I'm like, I think I need to slow it down.

Dwayne (41:12.506)
Yeah.

Tony (41:13.354)
you know, and maybe take a step back. Mine was almost the opposite, right? I started to learn these things and they kind of, they distracted me a little bit. All right, I got so wrapped up in a new technique, I forgot the big picture. But it was fortunate, you know, I have plenty of stories like that.

Dwayne (41:28.727)
Yes.

You know, that's a good way to put it, you know, fortunate. It's life, man. Like, I think, I don't know what happens to everybody, but I've done that. I didn't cut mine, I didn't finish the cut, but I started and I wasn't intending to board cut it. I was, but I was still tied in and I was back cutting it and I don't know why I stopped.

but I was three quarters of the way through, just going away, but it hadn't started to hinge yet. And it was, there was just the rope in it. It was no, like there was no, it wasn't being rigged. It was just sending it. And I stopped. I don't know why I had to stop. Do do do, and the saw. I paused. And in that pause, I noticed, I repositioned, I think, a little bit. And then I felt, I realized.

Holy shit, I'm still fully tied in, completely, to the very piece that I'm cutting. And I was able to stop the saw, and I'm well through this. It's not, you know, it's almost going, but it's not quite going. Like, it needs another half a second on the saw and it's gonna start to hinge. But it isn't yet, but it's close.

Tony (42:57.268)
Mm-hmm.

Dwayne (43:00.33)
You know, and like taking the rope out had to be ginger, because I thought, you know, it might create enough of a situation, just if you have too much friction pulling it out, might send it, you know? But I was able to pull it out without anyone even realizing what had happened. And it just makes you go like, what, well, I should, at the time, you're just kind of, oh, that was cool. Oh, wow.

Tony (43:29.545)
Mm-hmm.

Dwayne (43:29.574)
And you realize that it was close and everything, but now I look back on it and wonder what made it different for me than the people that happened to, other than, I think of the word luck, fate, or gift or blessing, but I can't take credit. You think about it, from that point forward, I was on a borrowed plan. I was gifted a chance, because that could have been curtains.

Like that could have been my one. And everything that's happened after that has been a gift. And I think when you can grasp onto that, and I mean, I could count several more times in different scenarios. I maybe didn't do that again, but I've had other ones where it's like, you know, not always in trees, I've had a couple of vehicle incidents, you know, where it's like, man, I can't explain why. But.

It didn't happen to me that time. It wasn't, you know, you hear it wasn't my time. It wasn't this. And I don't think that that's the big deal. It's not about getting caught up in the, is it odd or is it God conversation? It's about appreciating. And I think those lessons are there to show us the gift of life and the preciousness of it. And it's the same for everybody. And, uh, you know, the whole, how easy it is to judge someone's, Oh, what kind of idiot would do that? Well,

I think any arborist that has paid the ultimate price through an error in judgment or a simple mistake, I could have just as easily done myself, 100%. I don't think there's any one of them, whether they've been trained or not, that just simple errors in this industry just can have such literally fatal consequences. I think it's important that we all recognize that and that none of us are above it. I think there's something

When you reach the ability to be able to realize it, I think it's important, I don't know. Am I making sense here? I feel like I'm rambling. Ha ha.

Tony (45:29.662)
Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. I think that, you know, that we all know it's better. It's every day, it's better to be lucky than good. Just the way the universe works, just the way it works. But when you can't, luck is not a strategy, right? And when you do have those lucky moments, it's very important to sit down and take a look and understand for what it is, right? And I know that when that incident that happened to me, it was sobering, right? It slowed me down.

a lot. It made me pay a lot more attention to what I was doing and stay a lot more focused. To me at that point, tree work was kind of a big puzzle I was putting together. But I realized at that point that it was a very serious puzzle, that if the pieces don't go together right, something terrible could happen. Like I said, fortunately for me, it was just fortune, luck, call it whatever you want, like I said. But you're true, maybe every day after that was gifted. But

I had plenty of moments in my life before that. So it was a gift from a gift from a gift from out of the tree work. But I mean, I had a really good grounding myself to appreciate the value of life at that point in my life anyway, through other experiences. But that was definitely for me, it was, it made me, I think in the end, it set me on the path to be a trainer, I think experiences like that. And I think it improved.

Dwayne (46:33.443)
Well yeah.

Tony (46:57.194)
my skills as a trainer because I'm not telling these stories or training these skills with impunity. I've screwed this shit up too. I guess I'd have been fortunate. I've had really good teachers, really good mentors, really, really good mentors over my years as an arborist, but that doesn't mean I've worked with impunity. And appreciating those things and understanding that you have to accept a certain amount of responsibility. Four-year actions is important.

Dwayne (47:27.51)
Well, and I think you said it best with, it's not the escaping death, but celebrating life. You know, that you've been given the opportunity to continue learning. You know, and death is an inevitability for us all. And you know, that's something else, I don't know if this is the time or place, but you know, like it's simply part of the journey. It's an inevitability and it's not.

Tony (47:41.475)
Mm-hmm.

Dwayne (47:56.418)
You know, it's not something you, uh, we seek to happen prematurely, but in its time, all things do happen. Right. And, and in the, in the tree care industry, you're, you're facing that somewhat. Like when I think back to when Peter died and was killed, um, you know, I certainly don't think that was his time. But at the same time, you know, what, you know, seven guys died that week, three of which doing the same top removal that Peter was doing on the same type of tree, you know, like

Were they better than us? Did they make mistakes that we wouldn't make? I don't, you know, it's like Stanley wrote the song, The Perfect Tree in honor of Pete's fatality. And, you know, he says there is no rhyme or reason to the question why, I guess it was just meant to be. And, you know, there isn't, it being able to even able to accept our journey as such, as when it is what it is, and others, we don't know.

I don't know why it had to be. I don't know that it was so many factors came together that day. It's almost like how it was meant to be. That's what Stanley talks about. Like why? I don't know. But you know, why are we so, we spend a lot of time avoiding that inevitability of life.

you know, either it would be through diet, exercise, and just plain old fear, worry. But, you know, I certainly, you know, there's a difference between that and recklessly heading in that direction, I think. But having a place to accept it from a place of, I don't know what, it's an interesting concept though. And yeah, but I really wanted to say, encourage people.

out there, like always try to learn and try never to judge if possible. And I hate to say the word never because we all, I certainly am capable of it and, and do it and try not to though, because it closes the mind to learning. I think, you know, if you think it couldn't happen to you, you've just missed an opportunity to learn. And, you know, nobody sets out to make, to leave the rope in the top and do the back cut that morning.

Dwayne (50:25.202)
And you've talked about that before, Tony. And to some, you break your back, and to some, you get in the hospital, to some, you get in the coffin, and to some, you don't even get injured. The tree was too short. Why? But to think that you couldn't have done it, to think that it couldn't happen, I think that's where the real mistake gets made, personally. And being...

honest with what you've done and willing to learn and open-minded to what causes things and what we can learn from I think is pretty key.

Tony (51:06.354)
Yeah, you know, it's like I said, you know, death is inevitable, but I look at it from, there's a span of life and then there's a span of living, right, so there's the time you live and then the quality with which you live. I think for most people the span of life, how long you actually live, it might be a little predetermined maybe by genetics, maybe by a lot of different things. I think the point is to make

Dwayne (51:31.095)
Right.

Tony (51:33.666)
the quality of the life as best as possible within that span. So the best way to go out is you're at full bore and then you're gone, right? Blink out like a shooting star. But to live right to that end, not that kind of slow decline down. And that's not to advocate that it's not to go big or go home. I think the way that's accomplished is through exactly what you were saying, right? Taking an honest look at what you do in life and the risks you take and why you take them.

Dwayne (51:44.395)
Hehehe

Tony (52:02.846)
It occurred to me years ago that knowingly doing something unsafe is probably the most selfish thing you could possibly do, right? Because if you don't, I don't wanna wear that hard hat because it's hard, it's hot and it's uncomfortable and you knowingly don't wear that hard hat and then get hit on the head and die, you don't pay, well, ultimately you pay the price but everyone else around you pays, right? And I mean, for me, there was a certain point in my life because of my life experiences,

You know, it's the old George Thurgood song. I'm just 22 and I don't mind dying. Nothing was going to be lost, right? You know, a beat up pickup truck, a nine millimeter handgun and a six pack of warm beer. So all I had to my name, you know, so it's it wasn't it wasn't putting a lot on the line when I was going out and doing stupid shit. But as you get a little older and you start to appreciate things a little more, that quality of life and that span of life becomes more valuable. So understanding that and.

Dwayne (52:50.638)
All right.

Tony (53:00.746)
You know, I think we're talking a lot about mortality here too, just because of, you know, with Norm passing, you know, our good friend Norm Hall passing. And it's funny how the, you know, the universe of whatever you say puts things in your way. I texted you the other day, I was working last week with the crew and I ended up on the job site where I remember working there the day I found out that my dad passed away. And there's so much, so many memories, good and bad, that are tied up to tree jobs with me, right? I can remember where I was.

I can remember I was working in the shop on a rain day when I heard about Peter's accident. Um, you know, I can remember what I was doing. There's so many mem- I remember the tree jobs I was working on when I, you know, when my niece was born, you know, and, or when my nieces and nephews were born, I remember where I was working and what I was doing when I got that phone call, you know, we didn't have a lot of cell phones far enough back then, but you get back to the office and get the news and it's like, and so-

And it's an interesting way to look at it. Like trees are markers in my life for the last 30 some years. Like they're signposts. Different trees are different jobs I've worked on and different things have. I've made decisions in trees, cause you're up there working and yeah, pruning or something and you just kind of get a think on or something and I've made pretty profound life decisions in the top of a tree about the course of my life and how it was gonna go.

what I do with my family and those types of things. So it's, and it's a unique perspective. It took a while to get there and appreciate it. And maybe other people have those types of markers in their life, I don't know, but I think arborists all use have trees for markers and white points. And I think when, you know, like with norm passing and then just thinking about these things, it kind of comes back around and it's good. It's not that I'm dwelling on it and everything's depressed, but it's good to think about your own mortality.

Dwayne (54:54.574)
Mm-hmm.

Tony (54:54.83)
You know, it's good to think those. You know, when we were talking with Scott the other night, you know, I said, a mentor, arborist of mine, Bruce Samaria worked for Davy Tree for many, many years. It was a man that in his personal life had dealt with a great deal of tragedy, his wife passing away and things. And he told me once, he said, Tony, don't leave it unsaid, don't leave it undone. If it's important, don't leave it unsaid, don't leave it undone. And it's a fine piece of advice.

You know, and I've used that piece of advice as a motivation for me to be like, yeah, this isn't going to be a great conversation or this isn't going to be an easy conversation, but I need to have it. Um, because you don't know why you just don't know, right? It just, you, it's far better to be uncomfortable in the moment than to, to span it out for a long time. But, and it's to bring it back around to the podcast, these listening to these stories of all these, many of these people I've known that have been, some of them are brand new to me.

Dwayne (55:31.299)
No.

Tony (55:47.65)
but the majority of them I've known for a while. And some of them on a personal level, not only in the business and as a work colleague, but as a personal friend. But to hear their stories and to see those similarities has just been, it's made me realize that I think I was drawn to training. I always thought I was drawn to training because I love to learn. And that's true, I do love to learn new things. But I think ultimately I was drawn to training because I love to tell stories.

And I never saw training as storytelling until we started to do this podcast. And I realized that when I step in front of a group of people and I'm teaching them basic chainsaw use, I'm just telling stories that I heard from you, I heard from Scott, I heard from Norm, I heard from Bruce. I'm just retelling the stories that they told me and I'm throwing some of my own in there. And my hope is that somebody that was a student of mine someday will start to tell those stories of Norm and Bruce and Dwayne and Scott and Tony.

Dwayne (56:35.182)
Mm-hmm.

Tony (56:46.078)
and then that will continue on. And I think it will because, you know, in the end I love to tell stories and that's been the driving force for a lot of my creative activities, a lot of my personal life. And I think that's what drew me to training was the ability to tell stories. And I never realized it until we started to do this podcast.

Dwayne (57:04.75)
Well, there's a saying that some of the world's greatest teachers told stories. And it is, I believe it's considered the original form of education. It's how it all started. It's still the most common medium that the first way you start to learn things is through stories.

Dwayne (57:35.903)
Lesson things, like life lesson type things. It's almost in all cultures, it connects to a story. It's fascinating. Storytelling, yes, yes. Teaching and storytelling, there you go.

Tony (57:50.633)
Mm-hmm.

Dwayne (57:54.102)
Well, I hope that our solo podcast to kick off 2024 has been interesting folks. Tony and I would obviously normally have a guest and we decided to just have a chat together with everyone. And this has been it. And I just wanna say that

Tony (58:15.918)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dwayne (58:21.566)
Any of you that have been listening diligently, we appreciate you listening to us and we're gonna continue having fun and doing what we do. And we hope that it will land where it lands for people. And I just wanna keep give people the 100%. I don't know what the word is here, but just, you know, if it resonates, great. If it resonates, great. If it doesn't, great.

You know, take what works, take, you know, take the blow the chaff away and take the kernels that apply to you or file it away. Maybe one day you can go back and listen to an episode that confused you or whatever. There's a, it's not a, and if we've crossed any lines or anything over the last season, you know, I don't know of anything specifically and I haven't heard anything, but.

You know, we have the best intentions. And our motives are pure in the delivery of this and the hope that it can simply serve as a way to improve this human force that we all are part of. And that's our goal and our goal is that we are somehow helping with the, with the, the tribal, not necessarily survival. I recently, my son was doing a talk and he taught,

He found a Shigo quote that said, survival is living in an environment where everything is trying to kill you. And thriving is not. Thriving is living where things are going well. And he was talking specifically about the plight of urban trees, and I found it quite fascinating.

Tony (59:57.878)
Hehehe

Tony (01:00:10.027)
Mm-hmm.

Tony (01:00:13.426)
Yeah, no, I can't echo that enough. I'm deeply appreciative for everybody that listens to the podcast and has listened. It's been an enormous creative outlet for me to do from a technical standpoint. I love to do that type of work, and it's been very satisfying. But like I said, just sharing those stories is important. And the people that have come up to me in my travels that I've been around that have listened to the podcast that have given me excellent feedback, it just means the world to me. I can't express how much that is.

Dwayne (01:00:19.936)
Ugh.

Tony (01:00:43.39)
And I would encourage everybody to spread the word some more. We'll, maybe we'll list the podcast so it becomes easier for people to find if they want. But I think, you know, we do have some, we're looking to do new and different things as always. We're always open to suggestions. So we'll have the Instagram page out there soon. We'll use that as pressure for Dwayne to get that up and running and interact with that. There's a Patreon page. We'll be, we're scheduled to be at the Arbor Expo, which is the end of March in Edison, New Jersey.

Dwayne (01:00:43.448)
Yeah.

Dwayne (01:01:02.736)
Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Yep.

Tony (01:01:13.326)
to a trade show. I think we'll be doing some live stuff there. I'll be at the Ontario ISA show presenting again this year. That's in February. End of February, I'm going to say 21st, 22nd, 23rd of February, presenting there. Perhaps Dwayne will be there too like we did last year. We'll see. But we will be getting out and around. Doing the live stuff is always fun. That's kind of the icing on the cake for all of it. And to really meet people and to sit down and chat with them is...

Dwayne (01:01:31.502)
Yep.

Tony (01:01:43.221)
is awesome.

Dwayne (01:01:45.642)
It is. Well, Tony, I want to thank you for all your hard work and for your, you know, it was a, you know, your encouragement and reminding me that we're running low on episodes and you know, you, there's, you know, I couldn't have done it without you, there's an understatement. And so thanks for all you do to keep this thing going. And it's been a blast.

and I just look forward to another season of wherever it takes us.

Tony (01:02:19.338)
Yep, you're welcome. And thank you for being the extrovert to my introvert in this partnership, because I couldn't do it without you either. But yeah, it has been fun. I do look forward to where it'll go in the new year and as these things go on. And I think it's going to just get better and better.

Dwayne (01:02:27.916)
I'm sorry.

Dwayne (01:02:37.554)
Yes, I agree. Well everyone, this is Dwayne Neustater and...

Tony (01:02:42.539)
Onyteresyl.

Dwayne (01:02:44.746)
Wishing you a happy 2024 and a safe journey through this human forest. Until next time. We'll see you.

Tony (01:02:55.107)
Until next time.