as time goes by

[openspaceman]

I went for a walk with my daughter's dog, a bit further afield than normal. We drove past a 24acre plantation for sale. I extracted the clear fall here in about 1981 using a bog standard County and double drum winch. The parcel had been bought at auction at the top of the market £30/m3 standing, larch and pine a bit under thinned. We got about 2 24'6 and a few bars out of most trees plus precious few utility poles which we had debarked using spades (very low yield).

 

Stacking area was so tight after a few days I went out and bought a Bomford blade for the County which also meant I wasn't doing wheelies dragging 8 trees out at a time. Reg was the foreman for the partners that had bought the parcel and was felling and topping 150 trees a day, about 45m3, he was in his mid fifties by then, his two assistants and mine crosscut and stacked. My extracting only just kept up with him, luckily he was topping at 5" so not much pulp to deal with

 

The thing that made me remember it was we parked the tractor down a lane opposite with an elderly couple, they invited my wife and I in for tea one day and told us they were married on the day the last crop of barley came off the field that became the plantation, now for sale, 54 years previously.

 

I have never set foot on the place since but it doesn't look like it has been thinned since it was replanted.

[aspenarb]

Its because we are old Catweazel

 

I was sat in a traffic jam on the southbound carriageway of the A3 yesterday because a truck fire had wrecked a lane. I was staring up at the banks looking at all the 30`+ Birch, gorse and bramble thinking it resembled a jungle. Twenty odd years ago we cleared about fifteen miles of this with mulchers , cutters and whatever else we could get up the ridiculously steep banks. Anyway the idea was to maintain the banks thereafter so this never needed doing again, I sighed and thought why do we bother

 

Bob

[Stubby]

Old is what we are ! . It seems to me only yesterday when the 86 storm hit . Any way soon they will nail the lid on and say " Andy Stubbs ? " no don't remember him ......

[openspaceman]

Its because we are old Catweazel

 

I was sat in a traffic jam on the southbound carriageway of the A3 yesterday because a truck fire had wrecked a lane. I was staring up at the banks looking at all the 30`+ Birch, gorse and bramble thinking it resembled a jungle. Twenty odd years ago we cleared about fifteen miles of this with mulchers , cutters and whatever else we could get up the ridiculously steep banks. Anyway the idea was to maintain the banks thereafter so this never needed doing again, I sighed and thought why do we bother

 

Bob

 

Was that in the day of Tony's red? unimog ? I used to see it running around on highways jobs but I was only interested in forestry then.

 

The plantation I mentioned may well be visible from by your yard and up through Vokes.

[openspaceman]

Old is what we are ! . It seems to me only yesterday when the 86 storm hit . Any way soon they will nail the lid on and say " Andy Stubbs ? " no don't remember him ......

 

My 'phone dried up ringing ages ago, most people probably think I died already.

 

Anyway it was 87!

[IVECOKID]

I have been desperately looking for the HANDBRAKE to life to try and slow it down .......i found it 3 years ago and its called a CARAVAN !

Got fed up of weeks flying by .

 

 

Ste

[the village idiot]

Old is what we are ! . It seems to me only yesterday when the 86 storm hit . Any way soon they will nail the lid on and say " Andy Stubbs ? " no don't remember him ......

 

Who's Andy Stubbs?

[aspenarb]

Was that in the day of Tony's red? unimog ? I used to see it running around on highways jobs but I was only interested in forestry then.

 

The plantation I mentioned may well be visible from by your yard and up through Vokes.

 

 

That old 406 mog had one of Berti`s first forestry swing hammer mulchers stuck on it after that , anyway it gets worse because I still have it festering in the corner of the other yard and its 20 years since we last used it:blushing: I am clearing out at the moment and when I get that far I will take some pics of it.

Are you talking about the copse at the top of Cobbets hill ?

 

 

Bob

[openspaceman]

T

Are you talking about the copse at the top of Cobbets hill ?

 

 

Bob

 

No, top of Hunts Hill Rd

[Stubby]

[quote name=openspace

 

Anyway it was 87![/quote]

 

See ...even my long term memory has gone