MattyF

Get in with farmers i pay no rent for storing timber in a heap and only £10 a load for the unchipable stuff to be burnt also the farmers weekly did an article on the benifits on wood chip as cattle bedding and other uses i now have 5 new drops just as was filling my last one up!

I would stay it was pretty important to use steel on lowering kit ,the ally ones make a good saw hook when they blow out though,just bend the gate back around and it will stay open and sit nice on your belt....

well that was the plan as you can see its quite out of proportion to the rest of the crown and any main load anchore points would of been lower so if it had snapped it still would of probaly sailed in to the lines...also a theres no decent anchore point so i probaly would of gone for a quite large section to rope out as i didnt want to go out to far in the wind!but its the plan for when i go back...i was tempted just to cut them and they probaly would of flown the wires but a bit to much of a gamble if there was a sudden lull in the wind

The unreduced limbs i bottled the overly long one was the one i didnt like as i new it would probaly have to be roped off itself with the added presure of wind i was worried it could break and take the phone and power lines out [/img]

nice open planes to get some proper windspeed up before it hits the tree [/img]

steve please dont leave us over this,i respect your opinion mate. any ways here is some photos of the culprit that broke me! AS you can see i raised it up on that day and the woman i was working for just got me to fill the rest of the day with dead wooding some more sheltered ash so it was not a complete waste o time [/img]

closest ive come to death was when i had a big lombardy that was once part of an avenue of them . we where repollarding really should of been felling but the council would not let us, had a green house and very tight garden and a road on the other side of the tree. I was spiking up the poles to tip rope them off with a lowering point set at the top of the biggest and had just changed my anchore point to one of the back stems i had already roped half off to feel a bit more stable in the wind, when i came to cutting off the next stem to be lowered the tree tore off at the base of the pollard bowl basically taking half the remaining canopy ...the roping point stem and my old stem that i was anchored on to with it.....amazingly it twisted in the wind to fill up the whole garden and landed about 3" away from the green house! had to have a ciggy break and my legs where shakin like elvis! I know of one guy locally who had the same thing happen to him unfortunietly he hit the ground first wich they recon he would of survived but was crushed by the popular he had just attempted to rig. I dont mind working on popular when theres not much wind they are one of the easyest trees to work on just very brittle and act like sails in the wind and have done my fare share in stupid conditions ....i remember felling another lombardy popular that should of been rigged but it was so windy i could just cut bits off and they would sail over the garage under it straight to the chipper it was in for a day and it was down by 10 am.

i agree with that steve,better to perform in front of people and i would not of been picking up the bill for the phone wires! still no tree is worth feckin yourself or your finances in damages over ,all you peoples kind words have made it less of an ego bash!cheers:beerglass:

had to do a side reduction on big popular over some phone wires today tree was over 100ft but high winds made me think twice when i got to the top,did the lowest limbs over the wires but still bottled it when it came to the limbs higher up that needed tip wieght off,all i could think about was the roping and anchore points snapping out with the extra load with the jolt of a snatch combined with the wind speed if i attempted it.....,but felt i did the right thing by walking away for today but fu(kin hell did it make me feel low to be beaten by this tree...

my house mate has got a honda trx 350m 2002 raised suspension and split shift for sale needs an oil ring or somthing buts it road legal and has a winch think he wants around 2000 for it or somthing ill ask him if your interested....its pretty good for getting in tight spaces with a chipper had it in some proper jungles and if it gets stuck theres always the winch its evan pulled the transit and chipper out.

problem with pigeons is they nest pretty much all year...song birds ill leave or work around but its not been unknown for the odd undetected pigeon to acidently ..ahem ...go in the chipper

neo helping dig out a leylandii hedge. [/img]

things you should not do with your bosses new grinder,im not to sure how or why there was a need to take it in the river but he was lucky we got it out. [/img]

my land lord has one of these it was pretty expensive though but impressive [/img]

ahh pete and mummy always told me I was good looking! and chicks digged scars!

sad news,such a shame....the man was a legend

nice summers day on top of a spar. [/img]

im quite paranoid about such ways the govermrnt treats the farming comunity in this country but its all seeming a bit strange that both out breaks have bee at important times of year that farmers are selling pigs to market and ewes for breeding stock, it will make and break a lot of people.....

could be like this dead elm inside... [/img] one i climbed the other day felt like it was gonna fall out the ground..dont envey you if you have to climb it steve!i would opt for pulling it over....some thing about dead elm roots i dont trust evan if the heart woods solid.

that was me testing it and not getting enough slack out....luckily it was in to a big ball of ivey

3-4 wraps 2-3 braids usually adjust to what feels good and keep it like that on the rope for a while and that gets some nice glazing going on on my friction cord. what rope and cord you guys find works best with a vt?

at a guess i would say some sort of honey fungus but that photos crap steve! seen quite a few big surviving elms finally get dutch elm this year so maybe its some sort of secondary infection? i think the drought really knocked them last year and been submerged in water now hasnt really helped but im sure thats the case with lots of dieing trees at the moment.

well i tryed today but was eating crisps and needed a chocolate kickstart by 3 pm.........drink plenty of water and try and eat healthy but its all to easy to grab some crisps. I dont have the time in the day to do that sorta regime i find it hard enough to make breakfast and lunch before having to load the truck up and organise the day,gonna get some porridge for a good start and see if that makes the differance but im still swearing by powerade for a afternoon pick me up

I seem to get loads of people asking me to take them rec climbing ,only taken about 2 though in last 14 years...been on a few midnight excersions to take some mistletoe for local pubs on some big populars wich was a laugh,made a zip line the other weekend and got to throw next doors misses out a cage! [/img]

he passed.....the point i was trying to make was he didnt know what the hell the letter box cut was by this name and i also had never heard of it either,just panicked when he was told to make the cut as it was bad enough trying to erase 30 years of bad habits and make good for the assesor when he was not shown or told the name of the cut in the basic training....any ways its all gravey now ! and he can get his new felling contract from the forrestry comision.