John Shutler

On 05/12/2021 at 19:47, Mick Dempsey said:

Got a feeling the stump grinder will underwhelm.

if its anything like the stump grinder I had on my boxer skid steer it'll be fairly dire

you’ll need to demonstrate that in installing the dropped kerb there will be  no damage to tree roots. solutions like cell web or similar that kevin suggested are all well and good but there is often an issue with build height (as it is a no dig solution) and how the new surfacing will interface with the existing road

yes i can sort that out for you 

when do you need them? you can come and collect from my yard later in the week 

what sort of size steve? 

im near sway

42 minutes ago, Big J said:

 

I did say that my comments were general, and your shoot doesn't bear much relation to the estates on which I've worked with huge drives.

 

I simply find the presence of pheasant pens in woodlands to be unsightly and with the associated issues highlighted above, I don't personally see the point. I can think of better ways to enjoy my Saturday than standing in the rain trying to blast some gormless bird out of the sky.

Each to their own.

What would you do to enjoy your Saturday?

19 minutes ago, Big J said:

 

I understand why you organise the shoot and enjoy it. I've eaten plenty of pheasant and have worked for shooting estates in the past in a forestry capacity. May I make a few general observations though?

 

Firstly, from a forestry perspective, pheasant shoots are a nightmare. The infrastructure (pens) left in the woods puts metalwork everywhere, which compromises the value of the crop and makes harvesting awkward and unpleasant.

 

Secondly, there is evidence to suggest that pheasant shoots support larger grey squirrel populations. Taken from Shootinguk.co.uk:

"The possible link between the decline of woodland song birds and grey squirrel predation is now the subject of Game Conservancy research, particularly as it has been suggested woodlands where pheasants are fed may hold higher stocks of grey squirrels due to the abundance of food"

 

Thirdly, from an aesthetic point of view, pheasant holding woodlands are hideous. The combination of the pens, unsympathetic woodland management (ie managed for the shoot as opposed to species diversity of timber quality) and profusion of idiot pheasants and scrounging grey squirrels just ruins any enjoyment anyone might derive from the place.

 

I'm entirely supportive of rough shooting to control pest species (such as grey squirrels). Why is there a need to go to all the effort and destruction of a driven pheasant shoot. 

 

There is also the environmental impact of releasing 57 million non-native birds into our countryside each year....

in your opinion, and once again your basing all your comments on your own dislike for things, the same runs true in your comments about devon, housing and the uk in general 

i’d challenge you to find a tidier shoot than ours, we have 4 pens that are all maintained to a high standard, ive been on commercial shoot shoots that release 10-20x the amount we do and the pens are a state. 

the ground our shoot is on has little to no forestry value, infact the money the estate collects each year for our rent is it’s only potential income. 

we manage the squirrel population and there is certainly not an abundance on the site, certainly no more than you’d expect on a holding of that size. 

i think you’d find it hard to call our little shoot destructive if you actually understood the ins and outs of it 

1 hour ago, trigger_andy said:

 

It’s a bit like Pheasant shooting round our way.  The Beaters on minimum wage get a Beaters Shoot at the end of the Season. They doff their caps to their betters and say thank you very much for the scraps they leave. 
 

so your better informed to comment on subjects that you know very little about il let you know about game shooting for the common man.

Ours is a working syndicate so 10 guns all pay the same amount of money (£1400 a year for 10 shoot days plus one tenants day) we rent a few hundred acres from a larger estate comprising of several thousand acres for about 3k a year. the greater majority of that land is mixed woodland surrounded by arable land with a small barn in the middle that is the base for the shoot. we have 4 release pens that we built and maintain annually that  eventually feed 8 drives. we release 1600 poults into the 4 pens around july time then try to keep them alive till when mid october when we start shooting ( pheasants are like sheep in the sense that all they want to do is die) we buy growers pellets for the birds then as time goes on corn from the adjacent farm. we all share the workload so i’m usually up there a couple of times a week as a minimum all year round. non of us are gentry, infact ones a teacher, another a welder, i’m a tree contractor and my mates a butcher. one of the guys does admin type work and another is a boat day skipper. gardener, retired cnc machine operator, building site manager and school caretaker make up the rest. we all chip in for the food on a shoot day and my mate who’s the butcher and runs a small farm shop provides the grub. it’s a stand one/beat one type affair so there’s two teams of 5 and on each drive 5 are shooting and 5 are beating. we also have about 20 people who turn up to beat. no ones paid anything but all the additional beaters are fed and take a brace of birds at the end of the day. the beaters are mostly fiends and family who come for the day out and enjoy the day and the exercise plus they enjoy working their dogs if they have one. most of the beaters have been going for as long as i can remember. one of the guns of one of the 5 man teams couldn’t make it today so two of the beaters got to shot two drives each for the day, it’s pretty relaxed. we have a beaters day mid season. the shoots been going about 30 years and generally we will shoot around 40-60 birds on a shoot day. any birds that  are left at the end of the day go to my mates shop. the shoot doesn’t usually have much money left at the end of the season, it just about covers all the costs. myself and another guy usually shoot 30 foxes a year off the ground, most of those are town foxes that come across looking for an easy feed. we also manage the deer on this section of the estate. 

its a lot of work and no ones there for anything apart from the enjoyment of it, guns and beaters alike 

@Mick Dempsey ive had a quadchip since they first came out (8yrs?) great little chipper that doesn't go out often but its handy to have

Hi line? 

1 minute ago, Rich Rule said:

Lovely John.

 

You feeling better now  ?

much better now mate 

taking out a couple of knackered Ash for a guy i used to do a bit of climbing for 10 - 12 years ago. nice easy couple of hours for a friday morning. roto really coming into its own on these sort of jobs 

23 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

Great vid John!

I felt like it summed up the day

On 17/10/2021 at 17:28, josharb87 said:

With the price of timber at a ridiculous price I brought myself a mill. 
 

taken a few hours to put together this giant mecanno set, but today I cut my first log. 
 

First project will be to create a simple 9mx9m pole barn type structure to house the logbullet and trailers (and short term the mill until I build another shed and proper base specifically for the mill)  

 

Looks good josh. I bought a used woodland mills a couple of years ago for the same reason. Mines been mounted on a 6m long RSJ frame so that all the sections that bolt together to form the track cannot move. mine now sits on some railway sleepers in a open fronted building

miserable ivy infested ash made a lot more bearable with the roto and grapple saw. 

9 hours ago, AHPP said:

What's the perfect rake for mechanised cleaning up big domestic jobs? 

just use an rsj held in the grab, you can tidy up pretty well with it and no chance of damaging the lawn with prongs

but again it’s down to the operator 

1 hour ago, AHPP said:

Are haybob tines gentle enough to use on a domestic lawn or do they leave scores?

a lot of it’s down to the operator 

1 hour ago, Greenhorn said:

Evening all,

 

We are carrying out some work next week using a crane. Rather than a contract lift, we are going down the CPA hire route. Basically this will save the customer the best part of £1100, all we need to do is make sure our hired-in insurance covers the cost of the crane (which it does) and provide the risk assessments and method statements. I was wondering if anyone has access to a template for these, and if so, would they mind sharing them with me? Obviously I'd change all relevant details relating to the specifics.

 

TIA

 

why would you save the client £1100 and take on all the risk yourself?

ive CPA hired in the past but would only  ever contract lift these days. it’s refreshing just turning up onsite and dealing with the tree rather than worrying about the crane. on a contract lift if the crane company turns up, doesn’t make you sign anything, doesn’t check for drains or suitability of  surface etc or a multitude of other things it’s not your problem 

edit

I also own and operate a 26m merlo roto so have my own lift plan/ method statement/risk assessment which i do for each site 

i usually just gather it all up and put it in a pile on the patio or garden path 

rescuing a mates tseries a couple of weeks ago with gear box issues. we had to push it up onto my low loader with a telehandler 

1 minute ago, Rough Hewn said:

How did you find the change over period,
Where you have to charge 20% but it’s not vat yet?

no different 

i don’t even think about the VAT these days just work out what i want for the job and add the VAT.

One of the biggest things things i found was going over the £830 plus vat for a 2 man team as the total inc VAT is £996 which keeps it just below 1k which i thought was important physiologically for clients but when i put it upto £890 plus vat i didn’t see a down turn in accepting quotes 

12 minutes ago, Rough Hewn said:

You insulted everyone who’s self employed by claiming they are hobbyists for not be vat registered.
You insult the entire population by claiming they aren’t intelligent enough to make their own decisions.
And now you’re back tracking and worming away.

just because you disagree doesn’t mean he’s wrong

ive been registered 8 years or so now. the back VAT i got from hmrc gave me a enough for a 50% deposit on a new pickup. no idea how much vat ive claimed back over the years must be getting on for 200k. it’s a huge encouragement to invest in equipment 

I was terrified of going VAT registered when it was happening but it’s one of the best things I ever did for my buisness. 

1 minute ago, Justme said:

If you take a second & stop thinking about you & start to think about the rest of the population you would see why its needed. People that can are very much in the minority. Over the last 6 years & about 1000 tests I have had TWO clients that could have passed the driving bit with no help, both would have failed the hitching bit. Get plenty that would pass the reverse once they know the rules but almost none that would have passed the hitching without the training or the pre course docs / videos.

i can’t comment on the semantics of how to hitch a trailer to pass a trailer test, or infact how to reverse a trailer to pass a test. however just because it is the “approved” version it doesn’t mean it’s better imo. thankfully il

no longer have to pass a test to carry out something i’m perfectly capable of doing. 

my main issue is with the lack of common sense applied in these situations, I know plenty of 16-18yr olds who I wouldn’t trust to boil an egg, likewise i know a couple who id trust implicitly to run my tractor and grain trailer.

11 hours ago, MattyF said:

After spending 20 years towing a sub 750kg chipper and reversing off all manor off roads and in to tight drives and driving tractors with forwarding trailers loaded through thinned woods and narrow country lanes I'm pretty sure I don't need to take a test to tow a trailer like most of us ... any one who disagrees Is feeling butt hurt about spending the money or already had it on there licence and that the advantage had helped them make money over competitors ... now it's a level playing Feild.

i’m in exactly the same position as you matty

just because you’ve not done a trailer test doesn’t mean you don’t know how to load a trailer or how to drive sensibly.