Arborists' Most Unique Stories Over the Years

Three Davey arborists share some of their most unique on-the-job stories they've experienced as an arborist.

In this episode we cover:

• Wendy Austin's story (0:38)
• Connor Clark's story (7:43)
• Miles Stephen's story (15:48)

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Transcript

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Doug Oster: Welcome to the Davey Tree Expert Companies Podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each episode showcases one of Davey's certified arborists sharing advice with everyone about caring for your trees and landscapes. We'll talk about everything from introduce pests, seasonal tree care, deer damage, how to make your trees thrive, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more, because here at the Talking Trees podcast, we know trees are the answer.

We're going to have so much fun this week as we're showcasing unique stories from arborists over the years. Davey's Wendy Austin got quite a surprise in the field, that's for sure. Wendy, when we were searching for unique stories, yours certainly came to mind right off the bat. Take us there [laughs] and tell me what happened.

Wendy: I was working on a transmission contract down in Florida, and we had to drive through some wetlands, some protected wetlands. Looking out, I could see multiple lakes, rivers, streams, and the supervisor who was leading us through said, "We're going to be driving this path and this path." I said, "But there's a lake in the way." He said, "No, no, we're going to drive through that." I said, "Well, I'm not driving a boat."

He said to look on the sides, and he pointed out there's special markings that they would put out that denotes that there's a hard bottom. They put in this special matting along the bottom to keep the road open for official vehicles, but you can't really see it from the road. You just look for these symbols and you know that you're in the right spot. The supervisor led his way through, and then my boss went through behind him driving through his wake.

I came in third trying to stay as close to the truck in front of me as possible because I still was feeling hinky about it. The water was pretty high up on the truck, and I look off to my left and there's this huge alligator looking right at me, eyeball to eyeball. I could have probably reached out my window and tapped him right on the snout, and it was enough to really wake you up. [chuckles]

Doug: [laughs] Oh man. Tell me a little bit about the project that you were working on there.

Wendy: A lot of Florida is protected area and our transmission lines tend to go through a lot of wetlands. There's some of it's down in the Everglades and most of that stuff is done by boat. Where I was working, there was still hard bottom roads that we could drive through. Most of that area, we have different environmental concerns that we deal with where normally on transmission, you want to keep everything cut to the ground.

We actually provided, given the situation of having the transmission lines, we actually provided optimum habitat for several different species. When we were in the drier spots with mostly the sand, they called it sugar sand, we would clear out sections to make enough habitat for the gopher tortoise. The gopher tortoise there is so popular and loved that the whole highway traffic will stop so that somebody can get out and help the little guy across the road.

We have to be careful when we find them. We have to literally get out on foot in certain areas to locate them and flag them because you can't do work within a certain number of feet around them, around their dens. The habitat is created and maintained just by having this transmission line. When we drive through there, of course, we're looking for all the markings that state that there is gopher tortoise holes nearby so that we don't end up harming anybody. You got to drive slow, you got to pay attention. Other sections, we're actually maintaining habitat for scrub jays. Scrub jays are very exclusive to Florida, and I believe they are endangered.

There's not that many, a few hundred I think, and so we maintain the habitat by cutting the shrub down during certain times of the year and keeping the shrub at a particular height. We've got the sandy areas for the shrub because they utilize the sandy areas and then they eat in the shrubs so that whole project, just maintaining our lines was not the full scope. We also worked hand in hand with the local biologists, state and federal biologists to make sure that we were all hand in hand working everything together to maintain both our power lines, customer satisfaction, and environmental responsibility.

Doug: Well, that's got to feel good, just tell me a little bit about that feeling of, "Hey, the transmission line, getting that part done is great, but then the environmental angle too is so cool."

Wendy: Yes. Many people don't realize just what is involved with keeping entire towns, states, communities energized. They look out and they see vast fields of solar rays or vast windmill farms, and they're only thinking about one aspect of it. For those of us that are on the ground that actually work in this field every day, we notice more details than the average Joe. We might be walking along and see that beautiful butterfly that no one else noticed, and our habitat is being maintained for that beautiful butterfly. As an amateur photographer, I enjoy being out on my sights when I have to walk three, four spans, I see things that you wouldn't get in, say, concrete jungles.

Doug: Oh, that's cool. You see this alligator, you guys get your trucks through the water. What do you say when you get on the other side?

Wendy: [laughs] I said, "Did you guys see that alligator?" They said, "What alligator?" I pointed them out and they said, "Oh yes." I said, "The sucker's huge." They patted me on the shoulder and said, "Welcome to Florida."

Doug: Oh, Wendy, thanks for sharing your story. That's a great one.

Wendy: Thank you so much.

Doug: Connor Clark, who works for Davey in Columbus, brings a little nostalgia for his tale. Connor, let's just get right into your story. Tell me a little bit about pruning some pretty important oaks.

Connor Clark: Yes, so we had the school district, Worthington City School District contact us for a pruning proposal while the kids were on break, and it didn't involve the school that we're talking about today. I went through the whole bid with them, gave them the proposal, and then at the end, I was talking to the representative, I said, "Do you mind if I stop over to the high school to Thomas Worthington and throw a bid in because I drive by there all the time, it's my old alma mater and those oaks, really quite large oaks, they could use a prune? There's some big pieces of dead in them, and I don't know how you guys typically do that, and it's not what you ask for, but just for fun, if I could throw that in there."

He said, "Yes, absolutely, I'd love to see what you guys come up with." That's how it all got started. We went over there and took a look at the trees, thought it would be a good training day. It's wide open field, right in the front, we call it the green right in front of the school. They do band practice there, they do field hockey, all sorts of things on there, so great access, wide open space, easy parking, and it's right off of a main road, so great visibility.

Everybody can see Davey's, that's the point is Davey's going to be in the front yard of the school for a whole week doing some training, doing some pruning, so some good public eye there. We ended up contacting Matt Salvato who's our trainer down here. I brought him over and he lives close and we just walked the school to give Worthington a competitive bid that they would want to go with because it's a sizeable one. There's a lot of oak trees, a lot of work to be done and see how we could maybe not go just for profit, but make it work for both of us.

We get the public eye, we get the training ability, we can schedule that and it's not very often where you get the chance to bid a job specifically for training. Typically, when the trainers come down, we're just throwing anything that makes sense at them. It's fun to involve Matt. He was super helpful in that, coming up with a game plan and they ended up going with it.

Doug: Then you get to go back to your high school [unintelligible 00:10:29]?

Connor: Yes. It's pretty cool to go back to where you graduated seven years later, I'm only 25, but went back and bid the old alma mater. It's still high school and I got to say, how cool is that, right? I think it's pretty sweet to leave, grow up, go out into the world, and then come back and then put a proposal in, to your old high school and they accept it and do business. Then get to help them out and show the community that you're still around and you want to do right by Worthington. I thought that was pretty fun.

Doug: Is there any recollection, as a kid, of that tree or were you not into trees at the time? Did you walk by that tree not even realizing what it was?

Connor: I think when you're at the school and you're in that age range, you're not super paying attention to all the trees, and especially down there, but I would frequently, I lived close by, and I would take the Olentangy bike path to school every day. I would photograph trees or hang out on the bike trail in the woods a lot when I was that age. Those trees specifically don't hold a lot of memory when I was in my youth, but they're awesome oak trees now to have been appreciative of oaks as an arborist.

I didn't particularly do a whole lot down there, except for, you could hang out and walk the greens. It's still cool to get to go back, definitely into trees at that time, but I didn't necessarily pay attention to those. I'm sure most of the kids there now don't.

Doug: I think what's interesting is that, as you've moved into this career, you're driving by that school all the time and that's what you're noticing. You're just like, "Hey, man, there's some deadwood up there." [laughs]

Connor: Yes. We ended up doing a lot of stuff for the school district, which is great. Even going back to my old elementary school, we did a lot of work there as well and that was really cool. Unfortunately, we removed a tree that I do remember at the elementary school. I'd wait for my mom to pick me up outside of school at the pickup and we removed a little London plane that was having some issues there. It's in my sales district, so I drive past the school all the time. I grew up there, went to the pool, went to the high school, elementary school, I had a couple of different houses there. It's fun to drive down.

Now that you're an arborist it's like, "Woof, the tree in the front yard of the old school is looking a little tough. We should give them a call." It's fun to have a relationship with the school district that I can call them and say, "Hey, I noticed this. What do you think?"

Doug: Was school in session or was there anybody at the schools that you knew from those days?

Connor: I haven't run into any old teachers yet, unfortunately. I think that'd be fun too, hopefully, my old ceramics teachers. His window's right there so it'd be nice, maybe I'll see about if he'll come out and visit during the pruning, maybe contact some old professors and teachers. I haven't been inside the school since either one of them, since we started bidding it, of course.

Doug: Maybe you can stand outside the ceramic teacher's window with your chainsaw and just stare at him through the window and just--

Connor: Scare him a little bit

Doug: Tell me a little bit about the elementary school tree. That's kind of cool.

Connor: That was part of the original bid, was doing a lot of stuff for the elementary schools. Mostly, they wanted dead whiting and hazardous removals, but they asked for my opinion on this specific tree. It wasn't the largest London plane ever, but definitely having more issues than you want close to the building. We removed it and I remember telling the representative for the school districts like, "Oh man, it's a shame that we're cutting this one down," because I remember it was just right outside of the door.

You go in, the cafeteria is on the right and I would do after-school care there when they stay a little later because your parents have work and they would move all the tables in the cafeteria. You'd hang out there and I'd get picked up at the end of the day around five o'clock right outside next to that London plane. It was a bummer to remove it, but definitely still cool to go back to the school, of course.

Doug: Well, Connor, I have to ask, were you a good student?

Connor: I was probably not the best student.

[laughter]

Connor: Just being honest, in elementary school, I feel like I was a lot better, of course, you're a young kid. Then I really did like elementary school, had a lot of friends. When I went over to high school at Thomas, I probably was not the most studious, but who knew that trees would be what I hyperfocus on?

Doug: It all worked out, right?

Connor: It all worked out in the end, yes.

Doug: All right. Connor, thanks so much for sharing your story. That's a great one.

Connor: Yes, thanks, I appreciate it.

Doug: Well, our last two stories come from my old friend, Miles Stephens. He's a district manager, works in the Pittsburgh area for the Davey Tree Expert Company. I've heard the stories, or one of these stories for a couple of years now, but let's start off with the story you told me about these great oak trees, right?

Miles Stephens: Right. Yes, for the first year, I was probably a sales rep in Atlanta and we got a call for a fellow had a property he just purchased, and he was all excited because he had his Oak Line Lane and he had named it Oak Lane and he had his house, he called it the Oak House and wanted me to come out and take a look to see about possibly doing some pruning in care of the trees. I said, "Great."

I go on out and I pull up and I'm thinking, "Am I at the right house?" I'm looking at the oak lane and I'm looking, they were all cottonwoods. There wasn't oak on the property. I had to drive up and break the news to the fellow that he did not have oak trees. These were cottonwoods and fellow, he bought them from and said, "Yes, we always call this as oak lane or oak, whatever."

He was greatly disappointed.

Doug: Oh.

Miles: I think what he eventually did, and we didn't get the job, I think he cut all the cottonwood trees down and planted oak trees to make Oak Lane. I was like, "You feel like you go tell somebody you got some good news, bad news," and this is like bad news for all the way around for what his dream was, but I think he did cut all of them down and he planted oak trees so he would have oak Lane.

Doug: I remember hearing your final story here, like I said, years ago and kept it in the back of my head saying somewhere I'm going to use that. Tell us a little bit about the next story. I don't even want to tease it with anything else other than that.

Miles: Yes, this goes back to probably my second year with Davey and I was a lawn tech back then. I was doing lawns in Upper Saint Clair and I got this property, I looked up in the tree and there's this bike, about 40 feet up in the tree. I asked people how it got there, that they weren't sure storm came, blew it up there, or I think a kid climbed up and put it up there and then the tree had grown around it. Here you have this bike up in this tree, about 40 feet up with the tree growing around. It was the oddest, oddest thing. I mean it was one of the oddest things I ever saw.

Doug: That'd be quite a pruning job, huh?

Miles: Yes. I'm impressed that the kid climbed up there and put it there. That's what I'm impressed. How'd he get it up there to climb up? I don't think any storm blew it up there.

Doug: Did--

Miles: Where it was is where it was. It isn't like he put it 10 feet up and the tree grows up and the bike goes up, no. Where it was is where it was, it got put there-

Doug: Was is just-

Miles: -so how he got it there?

Doug: -was it just up there or was the tree growing into it or?

Miles: He wedged it in a crutch and then through time, the tree was growing around it.

Doug: Oh.

Miles: It just wedged up there, maybe got up there, left it, wanted to go back to get it at that point in time, couldn't get it out of there anymore.

Doug: Oh, that's great. What kind of tree was it?

Miles: It was a pin oak

Doug: [laughs] Oh, that's great. You know, Miles, in all your years you've been doing this, those are two great stories, but you never know what you're going to find around the next corner when you go visit a property, right?

Miles: Oh yes. The variety never ends. By the time you think you've seen it all, you haven't. There's a lot of unique properties in the Pittsburgh area and I'm sure I've just scratched the surface of them, to be honest with you. There's always interesting things to find, an interesting tree that may come across, you may come across, that's all. Go in a backyard, and all of a sudden, you find a persimmon tree. It's like, "What are you doing here?"

It inspired me to plant or find a paw-paw tree in the backyard. You just never know. Don't see them that often, but occasionally, you'll find that. Then, there's always some unique history that maybe folks have with the tree or whatever, beyond a Christmas tree or whatever. There's a lot of interesting things out there.

Doug: All right, Miles, we're going to keep searching for stories. I think we should do this once a year. Next time we talk, if you've got a good story or any of your buddies have a good story, we're going to use that as we move on. Thanks again for your time.

Miles: Thank you, Doug. Have a happy holiday. Take care.

Doug: You too.

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Doug: Wasn't that fun? I never want to see an alligator looking me in the eye when I'm driving, that's for sure. Now tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees podcast from the Davy Tree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Do me a favor, subscribe to the podcast. I hope you're having as much fun listening as I am hosting the show. Next week, it's all about New Year's resolutions for your landscape, things you should start doing for your trees to keep them thriving. As always, we like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast, trees are the answer.

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