I learned to climb and cut as a boy, my father being a tree climber and cutter from Holland, later becoming a carpenter which he remained throughout his final years after breaking a leg in a tree back in 1964. I was 4. I'll never forget my big uncle Jake bringing him home late that night, helping my Dad through the front door, me at the top of the stairs looking down from our house in Fredricksburg. My dad had cast on his leg up to his hip with his arm draped around my uncles shoulder and my Mom sternly saying "that's it Tom, no more trees".

Being in my 60s (currently 64) and working alone I have a lot of hacks and methods that may not fall into the frame of thinking of the conventional thinkers and by the book crowd. If you're looking for professional logger techniques and tips this isn't the page, I'm an old country tree surgeon putting food on the table and trying to come home alive every day.

I trust first in God and then in my experience and in that order and no other.