Enjoying a reputation for being knowledgeable about the history of arboriculture in the United States, I was honored and delighted to be asked to review Mark Johnston’s new book, The Tree Experts: A History of Professional Arboriculture in Britain.
“May you dance as if no one’s watching, sing as if no one’s listening and live every day as if it were your last.” – an Irish saying That is one of my favorite toasts. In my travels throughout the world of arboriculture, I’ve come to paraphrase this saying so it speaks to the heart […]
June 2021 marked the 50th anniversary of my entry into the profession of arboriculture as an adult (next year, 2022, will be the 100th anniversary of my late father’s founding of M. Blair Tree Experts). So what better way to celebrate than to get hit with the strongest storm in decades at my home? In […]
In the last issue – literally, since TCIA’s monthly safety newsletter is no longer being published – of the Tree Worker (July/August 2020), the page-12 article, “Rope and Pulley … a Dynamic Duo,” definitely caught my attention. With all due respect to the great staff at TCIA responsible for so many years of solid information, […]
Ed Hobbs created a sensation at the 1979 Northern California Tree Trimmer’s Jamboree when he gave the first public demonstration of the first commercially feasible, ratcheting lowering device in recorded arboricultural history, aptly named the Hobbs Lowering Device. I was there. I was mesmerized, as were most of those in attendance. Hobbs said the greatest […]
