opter Cutter Last Friday the farm was in a flurry of activity. Rusty was canning tomatoes, Pearl was planting winter greens, Claire was preparing fruit leather, and the boys were riding their bikes. The crisp fall silence was broken by the boys’ excitement as they announced a calamity coming from the sky.
At first it sounded like a low flying aircraft, then a tree trimming crew, and finally a monster. Within seconds the integration of all three emerged over the hill. As the deafening monster grew closer it lifted high enough to reveal whirring discs at the end of its pole. Along the electrical transmission line skirting Quiet Creek’s property, it was a helicopter with its giant hedge trimmer hovering just above the tree line blasting the forest wall. It seemed as if a tornado was careening the tree line, but instead high speed saw blades.
The five of us stood in amazement at the skill and the agility of the helicopter pilot. What a dangerous and bulky apparatus to maneuver so accurately near the power lines. As quickly as the “Death Blade 2000” had appeared, it completed its task and flew away directly overhead.
On our way to church Sunday morning we spotted the helicopter camped out in our neighbor’s field. Later that day we stopped to have a closer look. The cutter was mounted to the copter on the end of a 75 foot pole and contained ten circular saw blades each with a 30 inch diameter.
Eric, our neighbor, a commercial pilot, shared his air strip with the trimming machine from North Carolina and informed us that the helicopter could trim steep hillsides where trucks could not easily go. We appreciated the fact that no herbicides were used to poison the trees along with the smaller forest shrubs, insects, birds, and ground water
Business is back to normal, but we never know what lies over the next hill.
At first it sounded like a low flying aircraft, then a tree trimming crew, and finally a monster. Within seconds the integration of all three emerged over the hill. As the deafening monster grew closer it lifted high enough to reveal whirring discs at the end of its pole. Along the electrical transmission line skirting Quiet Creek’s property, it was a helicopter with its giant hedge trimmer hovering just above the tree line blasting the forest wall. It seemed as if a tornado was careening the tree line, but instead high speed saw blades.
The five of us stood in amazement at the skill and the agility of the helicopter pilot. What a dangerous and bulky apparatus to maneuver so accurately near the power lines. As quickly as the “Death Blade 2000” had appeared, it completed its task and flew away directly overhead.
On our way to church Sunday morning we spotted the helicopter camped out in our neighbor’s field. Later that day we stopped to have a closer look. The cutter was mounted to the copter on the end of a 75 foot pole and contained ten circular saw blades each with a 30 inch diameter.
Eric, our neighbor, a commercial pilot, shared his air strip with the trimming machine from North Carolina and informed us that the helicopter could trim steep hillsides where trucks could not easily go. We appreciated the fact that no herbicides were used to poison the trees along with the smaller forest shrubs, insects, birds, and ground water
Business is back to normal, but we never know what lies over the next hill.
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