Delicate pruning work....

[garth mc garth]

would of liked to have burnt in situ but the specs said everything had to be carted to hard standing area on edge of park and to be burnt in comfined area and waste to be removed. year previous to that we were burning in the wood with 2 360's loading each fire and the wind changed and the smoke closed the nearby motorway.

rhody clearance is good fun i agree

[Mr Ed]

I've found if I let the stacks dry for a month, then I get NO smoke from burning. Heat gets pretty intense though!

[garth mc garth]

something to cook your dinner on then! smoke was terrible and you could bet every hour the country park rangers would be asking you to dampen it off or reduce the size of the fire. was a fun job apart from having to constantly rescue the forwarder and being brought in on the job halfway as the unexperienced drivers had smashed the hell out the machines

[Mr Ed]

Yeah, funny enough I got my old HEMEK forwarder stuck on my last rhody job. I reversed into what I thought was a flat clearing, turned out to be an old pond covered in leaves. Took a 30 tonne hesford winch to pull me out

[garth mc garth]

ahh the joys of vehicle recovery!!! when u need a big winch like that u know ur stuck!!

before i got brought onto that job as excavator driver the hire firm had supplied their own drivers with no experience other than digging footings. one guy managed to pull 3 track plates off with the root fork, put a tree through the front glass, tear the bonnet off and the best of all whilst working on a steep slope he lifted the boom up and when it hit its maximum the centre of gravity tipped the whole machine back, got a photo somewhere of a new komatsu 210 sitting on its counter weight leaning against a massive oak.