82 Year Old Tree Trimmer

There is a big tree in the corner of the development.  Apparently it is fairly shallow rooted and the neighbor was worried that one day it might come down on his house.  We took a look and decided that it was heavily weighted in his direction by a big branch and if we took that branch off and it did fall it would probably not aim for his house.  About a month ago we bit the bullet and had it done.

The local expert who does this work was called in to do the dastardly deed.  We had a mental picture of men with ladders and chain saws but who arrives but this tiny, ancient, crippled up 82 year old man named Tacho.  Luis our gardener assured us that yep he was the man for the job.

He arrived early with his tools.  The tools consisted of a sack filled with ropes and a machete.  First , in preparation, he took off his shoes and rolled  up his pant legs exposing calloused feet and knees. Seen here sizing up the job, he then tied the machete to his waist, unloaded the ropes and proceeded to scale, not the tree with the branch, but rather the smaller tree next to it.

Once up that tree, he threw ropes over to the bigger tree and hand over hand swung himself into the bigger tree.

 Hormelis and his brother worked on the ground chopping and piling the branches to dispose of.

40-50 feet above the ground with no safety ropes, he worked and chopped and chopped and worked for 61/2 hours stopping only to rest his chopping arm occasionally and at one point to pee (while still up in the tree)  During all that time he had no food or water.  Every limb regardless of size was chopped with his machete, a tool he preferred to use because he could better calculate the exact spot where the limb would fall.

 One by one the limbs came off until he was left with the final big one.  This limb he skillfully dropped parallel between the power line and house and without touching the chain link fence.

We were lined up in our chairs on the ground watching with baited breath, praying he didn't fall out of the tree.

The last big limb was pulled with ropes from the ground. He descended the tree prior to the big fall by sliding, with bare hands and feet, down the rope.

Finally, safely back on the ground! His fee for service, $50....we paid him $80.  I spoke with him briefly.  I asked him how long he had been doing this, he answered all his life.   I asked if he had ever fallen out of a tree, he answered a lot of times.  I asked him when he planned to retire, he answered when his body stops.  What a precious old character.

NOTE:  Sadly, about 3 weeks after taking down our limbs Tacho died.  Apparently a limb hit him and he fell to his death....doing what he was born to do.

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