Swingtime!

In 15 years climbing, I've done a lot of pruning out dead wood, clearing roofs, etc. I like my job, but it can get old doing the same thing day after day. So it was fun this weekend to visit my friend, Lily, who is almost 4. She got a new swing for Christmas. It is like a reverse pogo stick, with a round seat suspended from a spring-loaded tube that will allow her to bounce up and down, as well as swing. I went over to hang it in a Pecan tree (C. illinoensis) in her back yard.

I've installed a few swings over the years. I'm always glad when someone asks me to, since most people do it wrong from the trees' perspective. Though it seems counter-intuitive, the tree is better off having hardware installed in the wood rather than having the rope tied around the limb. This is because most of the action in a branch takes place in a sheet of living cambium that lies just beneath the bark. Wrapping a rope around the limb can choke off this cambium like a noose. By contrast, drilling a small hole for a ring is pretty minor damage.

An eye lag is enough in most cases to support a kid's swing, but I didn't have any, so I used a threaded rod all the way through the limb with an Amon eye nut on the end. I used a cold chisel to peen the end of the rod in side the ring and hammered the top end flat so neither side could come unscrewed. To tie into the ring, I used an old piece of climbing rope, which should last much longer than the cheap cord the swing people provided to hang the seat from the spring tube.
It only took around a half-hour to get it done. Lily was a little shaky when she tried it out, but she seemed pleased to have it there. She let here friend Lamby try it while she sized the whole thing up. I'm sure it won't be long before she is putting her new swing to a real test.