Chris Sheppard

Yep, done and dusted in 2-3 days if not getting any firewood out I reckon. Week, maybe just into second week if pulling out firewood too. I'd go for several smaller fires, felling as many tops onto fire heap as could so as to avoid a bit of double handling. Smaller fires will mean tractor can just keep loading rather than having to wait for big fire to drop a bit before loading next few grabs. Spend a bit of time getting fires really hot and going well then load load load

Serves me right for not reading it properly

I spoke to Richard at Fuelwood at the APF about the japa 100 as they didn't have one on the stand. He'd said that Japa had redesigned it a fair bit and it made it more expensive so he couldn't see it being as popular. I've not seen a new one but it must be some fair amount of changes from the old one to be so much dearer now.

What you have to consider though is whilst you may be a good climber, are you, after a year, going to be fast enough to make up the extra money? For instance, if he can get someone in at £100 say but they can get the same job done in less cuts and making them a lot quicker then it all evens out a bit. I'm not saying you are slow, just factoring in something you mightn't have thought of. Have to see it from both sides.

We're not that bad here but up on the tops between here and Driffield yesterday was pretty deep. Came across 4 or 5 cars in various states of stuck that needed moving before I could get through. Surely people should realise that once they are having to push it with their bumper they aren't going to go much further!? Ours was the nice grippy snow (except where it had fallen on top of the heavily compacted stuff closer to civilisation) - had to go through some decent sized drifts in the 90 and somewhow kept on going

Chances are you'll get a grown up come along with the proper answer shortly but my understanding is that it is to partly stop any hot bits of carbon from being ejected onto dry tinder in hotter countries and partly something to do with emmisions. I can't see any bad coming from removing it as it's a restriction in the exhaust so surely can only be reducing the potential power.

snowing here again now

Really enjoyed that - a very talented man who can think outside the box

We've been fairly fortunate up until one site just before Christmas. The timber was on a road that saw very little traffic as it only went from the village (a tiny one at that) up to an estate farm and may as well have been a private road. There was just shy of an 8 wheeler load, but enough to warrant sending a wagon in for. Customer rolled up with the wagon to collect to find about 3T or so gone (he knew what was there as he'd forwarded it out from where wed left it). Fortunately thye'd come out with a smaller wagon and managed to make up a load, but that's not the point. Chances are there'l be someone down in the village thinking theve done well out of it, not giving thought to what it cost to get it there in the first place.

Fairly coldd here tody but not snowing any more. Fair bit hawed yesterday but whats lefts froen hard. Frustrating as can't crack on with the work thats to do, had a workshop day yesterday so mean i've got to grout the kitchen today

I've seen one just the same as yours for sale on ebay.......

Most agricultural stores or fencing suppliers should have or be able to get you 4" machine round tanalised poles easy enough - most of the time you need to let them dry for a few months before they are ready to prepare for painting. Cheapest is to buy by the full pack direct from the docks in Hull but that's something like 100 poles at a time. It might have all changed but BSJA used to send you out a set of plans for about £10. Those in the last pic were based on the BSJA ones but slightly smaller and using more conventional sizes of timber (the BSJA ones from memory used 4x2 1/2 and 3 x 1 1/2 - odd sizes to get hold of easily anyway) Depends on who your target market is as to what's best to start making - The standard wings and basic fillers were always good sellers but the practice stands went out in most volume. I've not been up to the farm for a year or two but think I might still have all my old templates for wings, practice stands, possibly some fillers, some XC fences and definitely the sheep and Pig fillers - if it's something you fancy trying they'd save you a fair bit of hard work. Should also be the racks I made up for painting poles on too and maybe a few other odds and sods.

Palax do/did one - don't know the model number off hand though. Several years ago I looked at both the japa and the HP but went for the HP eagle as it felt the right way round for me (this was when they were just a mirror image of each other) Mine was a slightly different design on the slitter compared to the new ones but hardly noticable. I really liked mine. Sold it to buy a processor and whilst the processor was good on the right stuff, I wished I'd hung on to the eagle.

A few pics off the old computer. I never got into doing static fences but found the portable cross country ones were quite good as quite often you could hire them out for an event and usually sell them straight off the course to deliver on the way home. About half of the ones in the paddock at Askham Bryan are some of the first I did - probably about 2005/2006 and they seem to have stood the test of time fairly well What used to be a good seller on the showjumps was the mini wings - looked like a normal set but scaled down to about 3ft tall and with 8ft poles and fillers.

Can see where you're coming from I can only go on what I was told at the time - thankfully that was a several years ago now an I don't get involved with them anymore

Probably going to be Bishop Burton I'd guess.

Supposedly, she's all Siberian Husky but I think she's too stocky to be. I reckon there's some malamute in there somewhere.

You'd be surprised just how heavy some of the tanalised softwood poles can be if they've been done fairly green too. Cup design is more important IME

I used to build horse jumps for a few years - started off as a wet day thing and then ended up being full time for a few months of the year and a weekend/evening thing the rest of the year. Painting is by far the worst bit and there is no real easy way to do it. I stopped in the end as I got fed up of the type of people I was usually having to deal with and Painting properly sickened me off it - the smell of gloss paint brings back nightmares! To make it pay, you need to have templates/jigs made up fr everything and make in big batches. The best profit is in working hunter fences or mobile cross country as the difference in cost between them and painted isn't much but they are a lot quicker to treat. EDIT: Forgot to say - Treated planer regd carcassing in 50x75 and 100x50 is what you'll use most of, with 150 x 50 for the feet. Most of construction is coach bolts and nails. There's a lot more thought goes into the design than you'd first think though, gaps need to be bigger than X or smaller than Y so as not to trap feet/hooves/heads etc and also bits need to break or fall off if hit hard enough so as not to trap also. BSJA used to sell sets of plans for the BSJA competetion spec stuff but most people don't need that good - I just used same plans but more conventional sized timber so as to bring prices down for end user.

Ours is supposedly a Siberian Husky but I think she's too big a build to be. I really don't know much when it comes to all the different types though Don't see why you couldn't put the Dalmation cross in a harness - seem to remember seeing people use pointer type dogs for racing. We bought one of these x back Racing Sled dog harness Husky/Malamute | eBay , seems nicely made and was good to deal with.

Cheers Some friends of Mother in Law had a pair of them and another dog too but found themselves with less and less time to take them all out as they couldn't take all three together so one had to go. We'd wanted one for a few years and it was agreed we'd take her and see how she settled in - that was in August and it's gone a whole lot smoother than it could have. Didn't seemed phased by a total change and has fitted in really well. Little terrier wasn't too happy at first but they're tolerating each other fairly well now. Hopefully get her onto a harness this year for some light running but it's not the end of the world if she won't.

Few months in and all good so far - she's even lost a few kilos too. Down from 38 when we got here to a more healthier 30ish. She's really surprised me how calm she is around the Ferrets.

We feed pretty much all year with any stale bread/cake etc and seem to get a good variety of birds. Husky worked out yesterday that it could reach the bird table so need to do something bit different. Slightly off topic, but been doing bit of topping the back end of the week on a site where there were a pair of Kestrels that were clever enough to follow the tractor and grab anyything that run out of the grss in front of the tractor. Was quite cool to watch.