At work today

[Mark Bolam]

Ouch Doug!

Get back on those stretches! Cobra!

 

Great day subbing for Mark Broadley with the loader on a nasty lombardy wedged in a corner of a garden with a long drag.

Ross Smith climbing.

 

All brush dragged with loader, and flopped the butt with it as well with a 2:1.

 

 

[Mike Hill]

Doing tree surveys today.

[Doug Tait]

Working close enough to home today that if I wasn't cutting I'd have heard the saws. A small clearfell for an access road to a new development.

A lot of the walls in our town are built from reclaimed stone, pillaged from Melrose Abbey after it was attacked and burned to a ruin in 1385 by Richard II's army. All over there are random stones to be found with carvings, shapes and masons marks on them. Uncovered a few I'd never seen today when some ivy came off the wall which surprised me as I spent a lot of time playing and scrumping fruit in this area as a youngster. Unfortunately some of the fruit trees that I fed from are gone in the chip trailer now!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by Doug Tait

[Anno]

I don’t often post on here but sometimes you come across something in your travels that kind of stops you in your tracks. A few years back on my patch we gave permission for a TPO’d Beech to be felled owing to instability and an outbreak of Meripilus, and good on them they replanted near to the stump.
Went to look at a neighbour’s tree this week and was intrigued to say the least to find this!
Maybe the Sycamore Gap could benefit from something similar...

[Doug Tait]

Posted on this thread a while back about the convoy route cutting we were doing, today was the first turbine blade to start the journey. We are travelling with them just in case, had to cut a couple of branches but nothing of note.

 

10hr day, 8hrs moving with the convoy to their first layover, we travelled 10mls. Another 2 days the same and the first blade (of 21 in total) will be delivered to site.

 

Everything walking speed but fantastic to watch. Driver in the cab for forward propulsion, driver at rear is steering 2 trailers (96 wheels!), another guy operating trailer camber to keep the bed level, and a fourth lifting/rotating the blade itself. A young lad with a drone filming everything they did.

 

Afraid I had to stay close in front of them with the mewp so pics all from similar angle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sime42]

Cheers for those photos Doug, interesting to see something like that. You're lucky to be involved in the job.

I wouldn't have imagined that they'd raise and lower the blade like that, though it's obviously necessary given the length. It must have been a particularly wind free day I assume? Otherwise it looks like even that huge trailer could be flipped over fairly easily, even with its 96 wheels!

 

[Doug Tait]

Couple of times I went up in the mewp sawdust was falling straight down to the ground, not a breath of wind.

 

The tip of the blade is measuring wind speed continuously and the guy controlling the blade has option to rotate to deal with a little side wind but it's very weather dependant. It's due to travel again Wed/Thurs but forecast not too good.

[monkeybusiness]

Mega pics! Why do they lift the blade up? To clear the rear tailswing around bends is the only reason I can think, but it looks to be lifted incredibly high! 

[Doug Tait]

Yes they're trying to minimise the area of tailswing. They were particularly bothered about going into airspace without permission as apparently the landowner can invoice them for use, they said some Councils can be terrible for it. Just one of the reasons the drone filmed everything.

[AHPP]

Very interesting.