Yesterday we had the local tree surgeons operating on the trees in our street. The powerlines need to be kept clear of branches to maintain our electricity supply and today it was the turn of our street to have the trees pruned. It is quite a big job. ‘To work near power wires either additional training is required for arborists or they need to be Certified Line Clearance trimmers or Utility Arborists (there may be different terminology for various countries). There is a variety of minimum distances that must be kept from power wires depending on voltage, however the common distance for low voltage lines in urban settings is 10 feet (about 3 metres)’. (Wikipedia)
I was delighted to see that the person at the top of the cherry picker was a female. I like it when you find women in jobs that have been considered for so long to be men’s work.
They started with the trees next door to our house and then moved on to do our trees. We only had one that was in danger of encroaching on the powerlines.
We were able to ask them if we could use the mulch that was produced by all the cut branches and they left us with a lovely pile to use on our garden. Great reduce, reuse, recycle!
Gippsland Granny 
You’d need a head for heights doing that job, but how nice to be amongst trees all day. I love the smell when you walk past freshly cut wood.
Yes we had to have our bamboo chopped down which left us with a nice pile , then they asked us if we’d be happy to take more from down the road! We now have two big piles waiting for John’s retirement days.
It’s great when you get something for the garden without having to pay for it. We will need to wait for the eucalyptus mulch to break down a bit before we put it on the garden beds.
Do you have a list of jobs for John to do when he retires?!
Hi there. We do have a number of women in the Arboriculture industry, but yes, they are outnumbered by the men. Our women have had some great success on the international scene, with Kiah Martin being a former World Champion of the International Tree Climbing Competition, and Jessica Knot finishing on the podium in the 2015 ITCC in Florida earlier this year. You can see a snippet of Jess’ story here …
https://au.news.yahoo.com/vic/a/26537985/vic-daredevil-to-compete-in-world-tree-climbing-competition/
To learn more about the world of Tree Climbing and Arboriculture and all things trees, head over to …
https://www.facebook.com/ClimberTraining
Enjoy!
Thank you Rod for your comment. I had no idea there was an International Tree Climbing Competition. I will check out the links you provided.